On opening night of their shortened regular season, the Southeast U18 AAA Twins baseball team ran into an experienced and talented Regina White Sox team who taught them a lesson. In what ended up being their final game of the season, they gave that same White Sox team a genuine scare in the playoff opener. 

The stark contrast between that first game, a blowout loss on their home field, and the last, a game in which they held a commanding lead going into the seventh inning, was a snapshot of the season as a whole for the Twins. They went from being a young team lacking confidence to a threat to win every night that fought their way into the postseason with a late charge. 

"It was actually a good year," said team head coach Trent Dorrance. "It was a very intense, compact year but we got a lot of games in. We got a lot of development in the short time that we had. I was happy with what I saw."

In what was surely the strangest season the Twins have seen, one that started late due to COVID-19, the team started off the year just happy to be playing games. After all, there had been a time when they weren't sure they would get even that far. 

"Prior to the season was the worst because we didn't know if we were going to play week-to-week or day-to-day," Dorrance said. "Once we did get going there were certain rules one day, different rules another day, and finally we got them all ironed out and things went pretty smoothly after that." 

Once the season started, Dorrance noted some confidence issues early on. But he felt his team matured very quickly and by the end of the year they were right in the thick of the playoff race, needing a few key wins (which they got) to force an opening-round matchup with the White Sox. 

"We actually had that game," said Dorrance. "We were up 6-2 at one point in time and we just needed to get out of the seventh inning. We were up three runs with two outs to go and we just couldn't get those outs."

Having the White Sox on the ropes for that moment, however, was a sign of just how far the team had come. And the highest heights may well be ahead for the Twins in next year's season, which hopefully will be a little closer to normal.

"We'll have a lot of second and third years and I know there's a lot of great athletes that will either be moving up from bantam or coming in as second years," said Dorrance. "I think the competition will be good just to make the team. I'm excited for it."