It’s not as demanding as a major league baseball schedule, but the Aberdeen Smittys are spending their share of time on diamonds this month.

Last week the American Legion baseball squad played nine games in six days in three different cities. This week, the Smittys are heading to Omaha, Neb., for another tournament where they will be playing a minimum of five games in three days.

“We’ve got this whole week off until we play and so it gives our pitchers kind of a break on the mound,” said Smittys coach Josh Steinwandt. “It gets them off the field a little bit.”

Playing a demanding schedule is one thing, but being a bit short-handed without much of a break can be a real challenge. Aberdeen does not have a ton a depth to start with, and recently had to deal with a few injuries.

“We’ve had to move up some guys from Junior Legion and some 16U,” Steinwandt said. “Actually this past weekend we brought up a 13-year-old, Kannon Borge. He’s doing good. He had four hits this past weekend, and had a couple RBIs.”

The Smittys were able to get through the recent Dakota Classic Tournament in Sioux Falls using a limited amount of pitchers.

“Our pitching was huge. We only used five pitchers in four games,” Steinwandt said. “Going into it, we didn’t know how it was going to work, but it worked out.”

Aberdeen split four games at that tournament, and could have easily gone 3-1, losing one contest on a walk-off in extra innings.

“We’re just trying to throw a lot of strikes, trying to play good defense, trying to hit,” Steinwandt said. “I’m really proud of going 2-2 down at the Dakota Classic.”

Now, the squad is off to Omaha where they will play twice on Thursday, twice on Friday and again on Saturday. But first up will be taking in tonight’s semifinal game at the College World Series.

“Tournaments are fun,” Steinwandt said. “We’re playing teams from Illinois, Montana, teams that we wouldn’t see. I think the boys are excited.”

While the Smittys have had some success this season, they have also been unable to close out a few games in the later innings.

They will try to carry some momentum gained from last weekend into this week’s tourney.

“It makes it easier to come to the ball park the next day, for sure. We just need to start learning how to win close ball games for sure. That’s just been a struggle,” Steinwandt said. “We’ve had a couple ball games throughout the season where we were one or two runs away. That changes a lot of things record-wise, but they’re still fighting, still believing, so good things come to head.”