Parksville Royals graduate Seth Gurr has signed with the Bossier Parish Cavaliers in Shreveport, La.
Gurr will pitch for the Cavaliers in the National Junior College Athletic Association Region 14, Eastern Texas and Southwestern Louisiana.
Last season, Gurr had an exceptional season for the Royals in the BC Premier Baseball League, striking out 59 batters in 33 innings against just 11 walks.
Royals head coach Frank Kaluzniak had nothing but praise for his latest grad.
“Seth is a great kid who worked extremely hard,” said Kaluzniak. “He was a leader on and off the field for our club. Outstanding competitiveness and mound presence that gave us a chance to win every game. Seth is one of the best starting pitchers I’ve come into contact with since being the head coach and he will have success at the next level as the talent and intangibles will speak for themselves. I wish Seth all the best moving forward he was truly a pleasure to coach.”
Gurr, who is from Lethbridge, Alta., was playing in the Alberta Legion Baseball when he was recruited by the Royals in 2020. He is grateful and humbled for the opportunity the Royals have given him to play in the PBL as it significantly helped him hone his skills that drew the attention of scouts.
“Being able to play with the organization as some random pitcher coming from Alberta, if it wasn’t for coach Frank and Russ tweaking my mechanics, telling me what to do to throw harder, and suggesting me to Prime, I don’t think I would be the pitcher I built myself to today,” said Gurr.
“I especially owe a huge thanks to coach Frank and coach Bruce for putting my name out to different two- and four-year schools, and promoting me to a variety of high-calibre schools on Field Level to be looked at. That also played a huge part in my pitching career out here.”
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Kaluzniak was effusive in praising Seth’s pitch repertoire.
“Seth’s fastball sits 85 to 89 mph with good arm side sink,” said Kaluzniak. “He throws three pitches for strikes with the splitter being his out pitch. The slider has 10-7 shape that he is able to command in the zone. As I said, his splitter was his out pitch that had great action that got lots of swings and misses. It will be a quality pitch for him moving forward in his college career.”
Gurr impressed scouts when he joined the Taylor Bratton’s PBR BC tour of the U.S. Mid-West after the Royals’ PBL final four game.
“We were a high school team playing a bunch of college guys so we didn’t win too many games as you might expect but it was a great development opportunity,” Gurr described. “After pitching against Southeastern CC, Three Rivers CC, South Arkansas CC, and Frontier CC, each of those schools offered me a spot. Bossier Parish sent their pitching coach, Andrew Mercer, down to Monticello from Shreveport, which is about a three-hour flight, to watch me pitch against South Arkansas. Once I got back home, my parents and I had a phone call with Bossier head coach Bobby Gilliam and we talked about the offer which is a full ride scholarship for both years. My goal is to work hard and earn my way to a D1 school.”
— NEWS Staff, submitted