The Carillon Sultans made a statement in their first game at the U22 National Championships in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, defeating one of the pre-tournament favourites from Ontario, based out of Sarnia, 7-0. Dream start "Big win, obviously any time you play an Ontario team, they're considered the favourites at any of these national championships," Sultans coach Don Meilleur explains. "To get them first, we had all of our arms ready. We threw out Connor Martin to start the game, our lefty, he pitched and got us 3 2/3rd's. We scored three in the second or third inning, so we gave him a nice lead. We played real good defense behind him, he threw strikes. We then went to Colson Smith, one of our pickups from Elmwood, he came in in the 4th, and they had runners on second and third with one out, and he got us out of that inning without giving anything up. Really, really well to finish the game. We kept chipping away, getting some AB's, and getting some hits. 7-0 was the final, a huge, huge win for us to kick the tournament off against one of the favourites, which is nice." Confidence boosting performance Meilleur says it was a total team effort, and every player can feel good about this win, which is a big shot in the arm for the group. "Before the tournament, I said that the thing I like most about our team is our bats, and it was the same thing today. One through nine, we have guys that are hitting the ball, getting base hits. We don't have a typical power hitter that will change the game with a swing of the bat, we do things as a collective. Today, I want to say almost every guy in our lineup had a hit. We had tough at bats, we're not easy outs, we put balls in play, and we put barrels on most of the balls today. That is hard on the other team, because no matter what they throw, we're barreling up and we're getting hits and run. We played clean defense, as well. We never made an error today, and we made some real tough plays. That's another thing that deflates the other team, when they start to get a rally going, they know we're not going to kick the ball around, and give them extra outs. Pretty happy for the guys, today. They are pumped to get that win. We don't have another game today, but we go into tomorrow with a leg up on the other teams in our pool." Manitoba circled Coming off such an impressive win, Meilleur is well aware that they've earned the attention from other teams, and that's exactly what the Sultans are ready for. "When we come to these things, Manitoba may not always be on the top of everyone's list as a team to go after. But, now that we've knocked off one of the Ontario teams, we may get some different arms from the two Nova Scotia teams that we're playing (on Friday). They may look at it and think that they have to throw somebody different. We're confident in what we've got, we got some real good pickups, some very good arms, and we're absolutely confident in our own guys. We're in a really good position. We don't have to run anybody tomorrow full pitches and lose them for the rest of the tournament, we can be judicious in how many pitches we throw, and still keep guys available for Saturday or Sunday, which are the medal games or the quarterfinal game." Thursday evening plans With just the one game of the day completed, Meilleur details the plans for the evening. "We have the opening ceremonies tonight," the coach says. "We're going to go for a team lunch, keep the guys together, we'll come back to the hotel, rest a bit, then we'll go to the opening ceremonies. Then, they'll have tonight on their own. We'll have a loose curfew, I mean, they're all young men, they know why they are here. We don't feel like we have to enforce anything, but we do want them to remember that we're here for a job. We do have two big games on Friday. On Friday night, we'll have our big team dinner all together, because we don't know what's going to happen on Saturday, depending on where we finish in our pool. We're going to try and do a lot of things together as a team while we're here, but also give the guys some freedom that they can enjoy themselves while in Dartmouth." Winning changes strategy After collecting the first win, Meilleur says it does change how they go about the two games on Friday. "Every game when you're in a four day tournament like this, it changes how you approach your starting pitchers, depending on a win or a loss. Now that we've got the one, I believe that if we split (on Friday), we're in a very, very good position to be one of the top two in our pool. Top is what we're shooting for, because it get's us a bye right to the semifinals on Sunday morning. We don't want to rest on the one win, we know Nova Scotia is going to be tough, as well. We will probably go after that first game in the morning, because that is the Nova Scotia 1 team, the team that won their province. If we can win that, we'll be in an excellent position. We believe we are so deep, and have so many pitchers on the mound, no matter who we throw out there, we know we have a good chance of winning that game." Schedule Friday has the Sultans playing twice, Nova Scotia 1 at 8:00 a.m. (CT), then Nova Scotia 2 at 2:30 p.m. (CT) @steinbach_online Connor Martin was named player of the game for the #CarillonSultans ♬ original sound - SteinbachOnline