The Carillon Sultans will open the 2018 Manitoba Junior Baseball League season against the Interlake Blue Jays Wednesday at Quarry Park in Stonewall.

"We've had a little bit of a rough go to get practices in because of how late the season started but also player availability is not great at the beginning here with coordination with some of the midget stuff," said Sultans general manager Alex Grenier. "Getting all our players in one spot for practices has been pretty tough."

Kevin Dunn, who served as an assistant coach last season, has taken over the field managing duties from Grenier.

Mitch Nadeau will also be helping out in the duguout.

Three key players from last years team that lost out to the Elmwood Giants in the semfinals, Nick Grenier, Jared Esau and Matthew Funk graduated.

Zach Giesbrecht, Yanykk Nadeau and Carson Epp - who still have midget eligibility remaining and have a bit of junior ball experience - will play important roles with Carillon this season.

Grenier says this years Sultans team will be competitive.

"I'm not too concerned about play on the field. I think they'll be fine and compete with anyone out there. I just want to see the committment from the players to be there. We have strong midget aged players to join some elite players that have all won either a Midget Player of the Year or Pee Wee Player of the Year or have competed at Nationals or gone to university. We have a strong core group that can compete with anybody."

The Sultans home opener is Friday, May 18th against the St. Boniface Legionaires at A.D. Penner Park in Steinbach.