Soveran-Welte to get big league experience

By Lethbridge Herald on April 1, 2022.

Southern Alberta Newspapers

Tayler Soveran-Welte is going to get the big league experience.

The 13-year-old from Richmound, Sask. has been chosen to take part in Major League Basebal’s Trailblazer Series April 13-17 at the Jackie Robinson complex in Vero Beach, Fla.  Instructors and past speakers have included professional players, USA female national team players and Olympic softball star Jennie Finch.

Soveran-Welte played baseball in the Medicine Hat Little League program over the last five years. In a majority of those seasons, she was one of the only girls to play. In all of the years except one, she was the only girl on her team.

The objective of the Trailblazer event, started in 2010 by USA Baseball and MLB, is to provide playing, development and educational opportunities to girls who play baseball. It is built around Jackie Robinson Day, in celebration of baseball’s quintessential Trailblazer.

Soveran-Welte goes to Fox Valley School and also plays volleyball, curling, snowboarding and up until this year, played on a boys hockey team in Irvine.

In March 2020, Soveran-Welte was selected as one of 95 girls to attend the Trailblazer Series at the MLB Youth Academy in Compton California that was, like many things, eventually cancelled. 

She then got the chance from MLB to listen in on zoom meetings to speakers like Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City, and Sharon Robinson, daughter of Jackie Robinson, who shared stories with the girls on the meetings.

Soveran-Welte said in an email to the News, she would like to thank all of her old teammates and coaches with Irvine Minor Hockey and Medicine Hat Little League for treating her as just another member of the team and she hopes more girls come out and play baseball.