One point was what made the difference on Friday afternoon when Airdrie's baseball team, the Airdrie Kraken of the Airdrie Little League won against their rivals, the Cochrane Crush 19-18. The win was all the more dramatic as it was the championship game to close out the season.

According to Head Coach, Shane Wojtowich, the Airdrie Kraken have been undefeated in the Tier Two division this year and the closing championship game was all the more dramatic as at one point, the Kraken were down 10 points.

"[It was 12 to 2] and if we hadn't scored a run in the bottom of the inning, we were in we would have gotten mercy - mercy means what the game would have been over," he said. "The mercy rule is in effect if you're over 10 runs in the fourth inning. We ended up scoring, five runs at the bottom of that inning, and then caught our way back and then eventually won."

Wojtowich said although as a coach his role was to keep the players upbeat and focused, he himself went through an emotional rollercoaster on Friday. However, he added that the championship was a culmination of what he has been practising with the team throughout the season.

"We always start by asking the kids what their goals are. I always ask them one question: Do you want to be a better ballplayer at the end of the season? Almost unanimously, they always put up their hands. And they've all become better ballplayers whether it's skilled, whether it's learning how the game runs," Wojtowich said. 

While the strategic aspects of the game are important, the mental agility portion of baseball, in his view is just as important. However, he said that in watching coaches and General Managers from the Major League Baseball (MLB) teams, such as the Toronto Blue Jays' John Schneider, he himself has been always working to better his coaching style.

"Just the way he's handled the team has really, really helped me along as far as coaching. I find it pretty inspirational that [Schneider]  would kind of get dropped in the middle of a professional baseball team mid-season, and be good enough to manage a team with World World Series."

Although he may not be coaching the same team next year, Wojtowich is nonetheless proud of what the team accomplished, reflecting that wins and losses can be unexpected and it takes a team effort to turn around the trajectory of a game and the fate of the team.

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