Junior Bulls charge to 3-0 start at Junior Little League Nationals
Day 3 of the Junior Little League Nationals wrapped up Saturday at Spitz Stadium and the two Alberta teams remain undefeated.
The host Lethbridge Junior Bulls posted a 13-2 win over the Sydney Sooners of the Maritimes to improve to 3-0, while the Alberta representative Medicine Hat Little League joined the Junior Bulls atop the standings at 3-0 courtesy a five-inning, 22-4 win over NDG Lynx (Montreal) of Quebec.
In the early game, Coquitlam Little League/Fraser Valley District B.C. beat the Oakville Whitecaps from Ontario 10-4.
On Saturday afternoon, the Junior Bulls paced themselves to a 5-0 lead after two innings and doubled that after four innings.
With Lethbridge up 11-0 in the fifth, the Sooners scored a pair of runs before the hosts added two more in the sixth to round out the scoring.
Hitting leadoff, Josh Kabayama batted 4-for-5 with four runs scored and an RBI to go along with a double and a triple.
Dawson Leroux went 3-for4 with two runs scored and three RBI.
For the Maritimes, Daniel MacGillivary had an RBI.
Seth Gurr earned the win for the Junior Bulls, throwing two innings and allowing one hit, walking one and striking out two.
Dallas Cummins picked up the save for Lethbridge, going two-thirds innings and striking out one.
Hayden Maclean was tagged for the loss for the Sooners.
In Alberta’s win, Medicine Hat had an 11-run fifth inning to salt the win in five innings.
Silas Blair and Seth Baillie led Albert with four hits each. Blair went 4-for-4 with three runs scored and three RBI and Baillie was 4-for-5 with three runs scored and two RBI.
Tory Nelson was 2-for-4 with runs scored and two RBI for Alberta and Josh Stark went 2-for-4 with two runs scored.
three and striking out two before Hunter Cunningham came in the rest of the way, striking out five over two and twothirds innings.
Bishop reflected on the past five days of backand-forth playoff ball.
“You just have to look back (and say) it was a hell of a series,” he said. “Everybody played their best baseball and I really don’t think you could have had better games for the five. You just have to be proud of that.”
Lethbridge forced Game 5 in dramatic fashion Friday night, getting home runs from Nolan Handley and Semeniuk in the eighth inning to rally for a 3-2 win.
Sawyer said his players never quit, a trait they showed all season.
“I have nothing but good things to say about these boys, they never quit on me,” he said. “We were down two (with) our last five outs (Friday night) and we found a way to get to get to this game. It didn’t end the way we wanted, but I’ve got nothing but good things to say about these boys. They never quit, they battled all season and it just wasn’t quite the way we wanted to finish.”
“Definitely a good group of grinders, added Bishop. “Not willing to give up and not willing to give in. We were never out of it. It was just a great group of guys and hard workers, for sure.”