Victoria Mavericks win provincial championships, break 13-year drought

On Monday, August 5, the Victoria Mavericks baseball team in Kamloops won the BC senior men’s championship for the first time in 13 years.

“We’re over the moon,” Mavericks second baseman and coach Jeremy Campbell said. “We’ve been working on it for a while, so it’s awesome.”

In 2019, the outfit was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the provincials. The restrictions due to the pandemic forced the cancellation of the championships in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, the Mavericks came back strongly, but lost in an extra inning in the semifinals. Last year, they lost again in the semifinals, after their opponent hit a three-run home run.

“A lot of times … we thought we had the right team … and it just didn’t happen,” Campbell said. “To win this year, it’s such a satisfying feeling.”

Because the Mavericks are an amateur team, the players work full-time off the field, meaning they were unable to celebrate their victory in Kamloops.

“We had to leave unfortunately because we had to work on Tuesday,” Campbell said. “All we did was have a beer in the locker room.”

However, the coach said that the team will organize a party in the coming weeks to celebrate the event in a fitting manner.

The win secures the Mavericks a spot in the national championships, which will be held in Regina next August. The event is held long enough after provincials to give players time to travel and take time off work.

Campbell expects it will cost at least $25,000 to get the team to Sask., so the players have already begun fundraising. Earlier this year, they held a raffle with the Victoria Eagles baseball club, raising $59,000. The Mavericks will spend 25 percent of their half on travel expenses.

Victoria plans to host the provincial championships next August and Campbell hopes this will give them a boost for the national championships that follow.

The coach added that the entire team is looking forward to Regina.

“It’s really all we talk about every year,” he said. “Everyone is just so pumped to go.”