Junior Bulls looking for success at Junior Little League nationals

By Lethbridge Herald on August 6, 2022.

Herald photo by Dale Woodard Lethbridge Junior Bulls Taylor Chapple, left Caden Wouters, Jesse-James Olson and Teal Widner celebrate Kylar Lonan’s run in a seven-run fourth inning en route to a 9-6 win over Team B.C. at the 2022 Junior Little League Canadian Championship Thursday night at Spitz Stadium.

Al Beeber – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – abeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

The Lethbridge Junior Bulls are ready to kick some grass today.

The host team in the Canadian Junior Little League championships is the third seed as the tournament semifinals begin this morning.

The Junior Bulls take on Team Ontario from the East Nepean Little League at 10 a.m. in Spitz Stadium.

The second semifinal features No. 1 seed Team British Columbia from the South Vancouver Little League taking on Team Quebec from Mirabel at 1:30 p.m. 

The top three seeds all finished the round-robin portion of the championships with identical 4-1 records. Quebec enters play today with a 2-3 record.

The consolation final at 6:30 p.m. features Team Alberta from Medicine Hat with its 1-4 record going against Team Atlantic from Sydney, Nova Scotia which is winless.

This is the first time the championships have been staged since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Medicine Hat won the title that year.

The Bulls could become the first local team to reign as Canadian championships since Lethbridge Southwest Little League’s representative won it in both 2016 and ’17.

Junior Bulls coach Zachary Goruk said Friday with the pandemic over there is excitement in the air at Spitz Stadium.

“The excitement’s a little amplified this year,” said Goruk, with the tournament finally being staged again with pandemic restrictions lifted.

“I think people people are pretty excited,” said Goruk, adding there’s been strong support at the host team’s games.

“We’re where we’re ready to be,” added the coach of the semi-finals.

“For the most part I thought we were pretty good. We definitely fought through some adversity and I think being able to get through adversity is crucial in a tournament like this. Typically the team that is able to handle adversity the best tends to walk away with it all. And I think we’ve done pretty good so far,” said the coach.

While the team goes into every game not taking anything for granted, Goruk said “we’re pretty confident about what we’ve seen and what we’ve got but we just have to go out and execute and I think if we do that we’ll be successful.”

On Sunday, the third place game starts at 10 a.m. at Spitz while the championship runs at 2 p.m.

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