U15 Nationals gear up for upcoming season

On May 3 and 5, the Stratford 15U Nationals began preparing for the 2026 season at National Stadium.

This year’s 15U team is built on the 2025 14U squad. Led by Jamie Antonio, Mark Price, Corey Goebel and Rob Mogk, the Nationals placed in the top four at the Inter County Baseball Association (ICBA) 14U tournament in Ancaster and secured gold at the Ontario Baseball Association (OBA) 15U B Championships in Kingsville.

Nationals coach Rick Boon, who joined the 14U staff as a consultant last season, highlights that the main objectives for the upcoming season are to boost consistency and baseball IQ, minimize mental errors and improve overall gameplay.

“I think what we want to develop this year is just more consistency to get us to the highest level. We won the (14U) OBA B, which was a feather in our cap. But to be in the ICBA, it's a little tougher league. We want to increase our baseball IQ. We want to make sure that we're doing the little things in the game more carefully and more consistently. That's all,” Boon said.

“Absolutely want to make sure, as the season progresses at the beginning of the year, you expect to have errors made. Human errors are fine. I don't mind that, but the mental errors, we want to cut back on that and make sure that the things that they should be doing, they're thinking before the play actually happens.

“We want to make sure that the expectation is to get better every game, which is a cliché, but we want to make sure that every player, because we get players that play in a lot of different positions, we want to make sure that they know what they're supposed to be doing when they move, say, from second base to centre field, while they know what their role is in centre field and not what they were doing at second base.”

This regular season, the Nationals will play in the ICBA 15U Tier-1 division. Over the 24-game regular season, Stratford will compete against the Ancaster Angels, Brantford Red Sox, Cambridge Cubs, Simcoe Giants and two teams from both the Guelph Royals and Waterloo Tigers. The season culminates with the league tournament in Kitchener from Aug. 20 to 23.

In addition to the ICBA, the Nationals are set to compete in various marquee tournaments during the season: the Cardinal Classic at St. Thomas from May 22 to 24, the SMBA 15U tournament from July 17 to 19, and the OBA Qualifier from Aug. 6 to 9. If they qualify through the OBA qualifier, they will also participate in the OBA provincials from Sept. 3 to 6.

Stratford begins their season at home on May 7 at National Stadium with a match against Brantford.