Australian Baseball League: Perth Heat manager Andy Kyle says heartbreak of two championship losses fuels team

Two years in a row, Perth Heat have reached the Australian Baseball League Championship series, and two years in a row, they have fallen to Adelaide Giants in the last match of the best-of-three grand final. As the dawn of a new ABL season approaches, Heat manager Andy Kyle has acknowledged the heartbreak of back-to-back championship series losses is still palpable. But the long-tenured Kyle said he sees no reason to remind his charges of the pain, because he sees it fueling their preparations for the new season. “I don’t really need to (bring it up); I see it in the way they’re preparing and the way they talk,” he said. “We all hurt from it. We’re all passionate about this game and want to win. “It’s more about finding little ways of continuing to get better and different ways of scoring runs and finding those high leverage situations that we can maybe get better at to put us over the edge.” After holding aloft the Claxton Shield six times in eight years from 2008 onwards, the Heat have not won an ABL championship since 2015 and Kyle said as always, he expected his side to compete for the crown. “We’re gonna put (last year) behind us and concentrate on this year, but our goal is always to win the Shield,” he said. “That’s the expectation, that’s the tradition, and that’s what our playing group practice and prepare for. “Deep down in their hearts, they’re hurting for the last couple of seasons being close, but I know they’ve put in the work.” The Heat begin their season on Friday, the first match of a four-game home series against Brisbane Bandits, but Kyle will have more than a few selection headaches to deal with. Victims of their own success, the Heat will be without 2023 league MVP Alex Hall, ABL all-time home run record holder Tim Kennelly, first baseman Jake Bowey and outfielder Ulrich Bojarski, who are in camp with the Australian team competing at the Premier12 competition in Taiwan. Pitchers Warwick Saupold and Will Sherriff are also in the Australian squad for the tournament, which will see them play Japan, South Korea, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Chinese Taipei. “It’s going to be a challenging time, as far as starting off the year and losing four of my best position players and a couple of key arms,” Kyle said. “We’re trying to put some, put the puzzle together a little bit at the moment for the first series in trying to fill some of those holes. When we get those guys back, it’s shaping up to very be a very strong team, but in this league, if you get off to a bad start, it’s shaping up to be a very, very tough competition, so we don’t want to fall behind the eight ball early this year.”