The Quality Foods Parksville Royals had a tough time in their final six games, winning one out of four, with two games Saturday rained out.
It was a surprising season, in a positive way, for the Royals who came in with a very young team that was looking to gain experience and improve as the season went along. Having achieved that along the way, the Royals have something to look forward to for the seasons ahead.
“I think that overall, we had a good season,” assistant Bruce Biro said. “Of course, we didn’t reach our goal of making the playoffs but we played a lot of good games, we played a lot of tough games and our guys showed that they could hang with any team at any point in the season a lot of the time.”
With the majority of their roster being younger players, only five seniors, the chance to gain some experience with each passing game was huge as a team. Having an opportunity to see what it’s like this season and work towards taking that next step is something that was being looked at right from the start of the year.
“We knew it would be tough, no doubt about it,” head coach Dave Wallace said. “Our roster was one of the youngest in the league and it showed at times. But those kids played hard every game and they steadily improved through the season by leaps and bounds, so that was really positive to see that come about.”
With the team not making the playoffs, the Royals will look to build on their win total from this season, which improved from 2013, and hopefully look to have much of the same roster back in the pinstripes for next season.