The noise of AAA hockey is never too far away for young, talented Sudbury products, even if their sport of choice is baseball.

That fear of distractions is part of what led Ethan Morris initially to make his way out west, signing on with the Okotoks Dawgs a few years ago.

Things worked out well enough that his cousin, Tanner Morris, is now following a similar path.

With both boys on the move, time was of the essence in catching up with the pair before they hit the road.

Having just turned 19, Ethan was leaving last week for Liberal (Kansas), just this side of the Oklahoma state line and home of the Seward County College Saints. This after spending a year red-shirting with the Seminole State Raiders in Orlando.

Looking back, the elder Morris suggested that it was the ultra-focused approach of his new home in Alberta in the fall of 2023 that would springboard the journey to come. "There, it was just baseball," said Ethan.

"You live, you eat, you sleep, you drink baseball. Hammering the same routine each and every day was the biggest thing."

A two-way player when he left Sudbury but now solely driven towards becoming the best possible pitcher that he can, the 90+ MPH fastball thrower found himself dispelling some beliefs that he had carried from his youth.

"Looking back, I actually wish I had spent a little less time in the gym," said Ethan. "The gym helped me get there (to 90 MPH), but the biggest thing about throwing hard is that it's all about timing."

"It's how you use your muscles at certain times. If you try and force it out and try and use all of your muscles at once, it won't work."

Such are the learning moments one can encounter when left free of game day duties. With a slew of D1 bounce-backs making their way to Seminole State last fall, Morris opted to by-pass a year of eligibility in favour of simply working on his craft.

"I loved my year there, training for a whole year," he said. "I am so glad with the way things worked out. You have so much free time on your hands to really work on things: more hip motion, more spinal flexion."

Like his cousin, Tanner Morris knew the time had come to make a decision. And like his cousin, being able to move forward with that decision would simply be made far easier without the second-guessing that might occur in a hometown where he excelled in multiple sports.

"No matter what I do, baseball or hockey, I would always try hard - but it's hard trying to do both," said Tanner, also heading west in the coming weeks following his commitment to the Vauxhall Academy of Baseball in Alberta.

"Baseball is just a better fit for me, as an athlete and as a person."

Though he has also spent time on the mound as a member of the Sudbury Voyageurs PBLO program, Tanner will now turn is attention almost exclusively to improving as a catcher, with plenty of room for growth.

"There is lots of development potential now that I am doing baseball only," said Tanner. "I definitely have a lot of catching up to do. It was hard (picking just one sport), but we knew that I had a better chance with baseball, for sure."

Understandably, it is many of the finer nuances of his work behind the plate that Morris feels require the most polish.

"I need to get to know my pitchers much better," he said. "In the first couple of innings, I need to know what he wants, where he wants it - even before the game, working in the bullpen."

And where catchers may have received a pass when it comes to their abilities with bat in hand perhaps two or three decades ago, as long as their defensive metrics were good, such is no longer the case.

"I have to battle in my counts - and when I see a fastball early, just hit it," said Tanner.