Whalley club eyes national Little League title
With win at nationals, club would move into second spot all-time with six titles
The Whalley Little League Majors Allstars will try to become the 13th B.C. team in the last 14 years to win the Canadian Little League championship over the next week in the Montreal suburb of Mirabel and then represent the country at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.
A Canadian title would also move Whalley into second spot all-time with six national Little League championships, a fact the coaches appreciate the significance of and one of the players is blissfully unaware of.
“They don’t understand right now the significance of this, they have no idea what they’re doing,” said Mike Marino, one of three Whalley coaches.
“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 middleinfielders Joey Morino and Nate Colina, Marino said his group is the heavy favourite heading into the tourney, which begins for Whalley with a game Thursday morning against the Alberta champions.
“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 330-foot home run. 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 hardhitting Lynn Valley team to two hits in the provincial final.
“We think he’s the best Little League pitcher in Canada,” Marino said of his hurler who complements his 75-m.p.h. 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 national championship began in 1958 and Whalley has won five of those (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 Colonels and Toronto High Park.
CBC will live-stream games at cbcsports.ca and broadcast the Aug. 10 semifinals and Aug. 11 final on CBC.