Whalley playing for sixth national Little League title
B.C. teams always among favourites at Canadian championship, and this team is no different
The Whalley Little League Majors Allstars will try to become the 13th B.C. team in 14 years to win the Canadian Little League championship over the next week in the Montreal suburb of Mirabel, then represent the country at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Penn.
A Canadian title would also move Whalley into second all-time with six national championships, a fact the coaches appreciate but the players are blissfully unaware of.
“They don’t understand right now the significance of this, they have no idea what they’re doing,” Mike Marino, one of three Whalley coaches, said. “As guys who grew up playing little league ourselves, we know how hard it is and what it means, but the kids just think they’re in Montreal playing baseball.
“It might sink in how cool this is when they’re old men.”
Little leaguers are 11 and 12 years old. It’s often harder getting out of B.C.’s district and provincial tournaments than winning the national title.
Behind the power hitting of Dio Gama, Ian Huang’s pitching and the defensive play of middle infielders Joey Marino and Nate Colina, Mike Marino said his group is the heavy favourite heading into the tourney, which begins for Whalley with a game against the Alberta champions Thursday morning.
“But these are 12-year-olds, anything can happen,” Marino said.
At the provincial championship in Trail last weekend, Whalley beat Lynn Valley in the final. In that game, Gama — whose family immigrated from Mexico five years ago — hit a home run 330 feet. The fences in little league are 210 feet.
“He dented the side of a mountain,” Marino said, providing photographic evidence of a baseball half-buried in the slope. “He hit a line drive that I don’t think was higher than 15 feet off the ground, it was a laser.
“He hits some balls so hard I don’t think I could hit a ball that hard.”
Huang, meanwhile, held a hard-hitting Lynn Valley team to two hits.
“We think he’s the best Little League pitcher in Canada,” Marino said of his 75-m.p.h. hurler who complements his fastball with a mean curve and a change-up.
“He also throws a shuuto, a Japanese-style pitch. It’s a crazy ball that just drops. It looks like a fastball and then just hits the ground. And he’s not just a pitcher, he hits the ball hard, too.”
B.C. has won the Canadian title 26 times since the championship began in 1958. Whalley has won five (1973, ’78, ’97, ’05, ’06), tied for second-most with Trail and Glace Bay, N.S. Valleyfield, Que., has won eight. “Most of our boys have been together since they were seven,” Marino said. “We told them at seven, ‘Why not you guys?’ This would be a dream come true.”
Whalley’s competition are host Mirabel, Valleyfield, Lethbridge Southwest, Regina Kiwanis, Glace Bay and Toronto High Park.
CBC will livestream games at cbcsports.ca and air the Aug. 10 semifinals and Aug. 11 final on CBC.