PARRSBORO - Parrsboro Braves baseball have proven you don't have to come from a large centre to perform well at the provincial championships.
Last weekend, the Peewee Braves travelled to Antigonish for the Peewee A provincials and made it as far as the championship game, where they lost to Truro.
"We had a pretty small team with just 10 players," Braves coach Matt Hoeg said. "Some towns and cities in Nova Scotia have a large pool of players to draw from but that's not the way it is in Parrsboro. We had 10 kids at that age level in Parrsboro who wanted to play ball."
The Braves went into the quarter-finals against Clark's Harbour, which was the second ranked team in the playoffs, and won 10-6.
"It was a really exciting game," Hoeg said.
Then in the semi-finals, they beat Antigonish, earning a berth in the championship game against Truro.
"We ended up getting whipped pretty bad by Truro," Hoeg said.
The Braves began the season as a recreation team but after they won a double A tournament in P.E.I., Baseball Nova Scotia reclassified them as an A level team.
Hoeg said he wasn't surprised by the Braves success.
"A lot of people probably were surprised but I knew the quality of players we have here so I knew we could have a successful season," Hoeg said. "When they set their mind to it and when they have confidence and when they start to believe in themselves, they can beat anybody.
"Don't get me wrong, they do get down on themselves easy, but when they're pumped up they can play with the best of the best."
