{"id":38618,"date":"2026-07-30T14:38:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T18:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=38618"},"modified":"2026-07-30T14:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T18:39:08","slug":"mayor-mrakas-provides-pep-talk-for-national-championship-bound-u15-aurora-diggers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/mayor-mrakas-provides-pep-talk-for-national-championship-bound-u15-aurora-diggers\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor Mrakas provides pep talk for National Championship-bound U15 Aurora Diggers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mayor Tom Mrakas delivered a pep talk to the U15 Aurora Diggers fast pitch squad at Town Park\u2019s pristine ball diamond on Thursday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to Mayor Mrakas\u2019s timely words of encouragement to the Diggers prior to their date with destiny at the Canadian Championships next week, Town of Aurora Specialist in Sport and Community Development Hailey Jones presented each player with a congratulatory certificate to commemorate the Diggers\u2019 achievements in Ontario\u2019s Tier 1 division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones\u2014an NCAA basketball player who concluded her collegiate career with the McMaster Marauders\u2014praised the team\u2019s #1 seeding and encouraged all the student-athletes to strive for a postsecondary sports scholarship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those student-athletes looking to follow Jones\u2019s footsteps into an NCAA sports program is Diggers\u2019 ace pitcher and slugger Scoty Lewis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the team\u2019s third base dugout prior to practice, the hard-hitting hurler disclosed her athletic and academic goals:  \u201cI really want to play ball anywhere in the States–as long as it\u2019s at a high level of play.  I\u2019m interested in studying Kinesiology.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lewis, who is entering Grade 10 at Sir William Mulock Secondary School in September, has been a stellar two-way performer for the Diggers.  She\u2019s struck out a jaw-dropping 327 batters during the 2026 season. Lewis attributed her gaudy strikeout numbers, as well as her stingy 1.09 ERA and microscopic 0.78 WHIP, to the instruction she receives from her pitching coach Todd Martin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have more command this season because he finds something in my delivery and fixes it. I\u2019m a quick learner.  He\u2019s local so if I have a problem, we can work on it right away. I\u2019ve never had any other pitching coach. He was with the Canadian National Team and coached [Cardinal Carter grad, Syracuse University star, and National Olympic Team co-captain] Jenna Caira.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resident of Newmarket, who has also contributed to the team\u2019s success with her bat by hitting for a high average (.509) and belting big game home runs, explained why the U15 Diggers have been seeded as the top Tier 1 team in Ontario: \u201cOur team has a great connection with everyone. Everyone\u2019s truthful\u2014it leads to how we get along and our good play on the field. Our communication both off the field and on the field is on point. When we\u2019re playing defense and the ball is hit, everyone is screaming where the ball is, where the baserunners are, and where we need to throw the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only is Lewis pleased with how the Diggers have played as a team this Summer, but she believes her team\u2019s unity will be an asset at the U15 National Fast Pitch Championship tournament: \u201cWe want to win. We want to try our best. We\u2019ll win or lose as a team. We have to keep strong as a team and dig in against the strong competition we\u2019ll be facing. We\u2019ll need to be there for one another and we all need to be an uplifting presence to pick up our teammates.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Aurora Diggers\u2019 quest for a national title commences on July 28 when they take on PEI in Fredericton, NB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jim Stewart
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ace pitcher Scoty Lewis praises her team\u2019s \u201cconnection\u201d during the Diggers\u2019 magical season<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":38619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2026-07-30-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-a2S","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-07 03:36:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38620,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38618\/revisions\/38620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}