B.C. defeats host Junior Bulls to take Canadian title

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on August 9, 2022.

Herald photo by Al Beeber Team B.C. players and coaching staff celebrate after beating the host Lethbridge Junior Bulls 6-2 at the Canadian Junior Little League Championship final Sunday at Spitz Stadium.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

The team has no home diamond, practices wherever it can and plays all its games on the road but despite those challenges, the Vancouver Battalion has earned the title of Canadian Junior Little League champions.

Team B.C. beat the host Lethbridge Junior Bulls 6-2 Sunday in the title game at Spitz Stadium in front of a raucous packed crowd loudly cheering for both teams.

Led by the stellar pitching of Neo Foster and some timely hits combined with several Bulls errors and a couple of passed balls, the Battalion earned a spot in the Junior Little League World Series that opens next weekend in Taylor, Michigan at Heritage Park.

Battalion head coach Ron Laquaglia was still coming to terms with his team’s achievement after closing ceremonies ended as his team celebrated with players from the other championship squads who stayed in the city for the final.

Laquaglia said his team was the tournament underdog with the adversity they have to deal with as a newer program – it’s only existed for about five years – with no place to call its baseball home.

“It feels amazing, it’s really crazy. The story’s about the kids. We have no home field, we play every game on the road and to keep going and persevere, this group of kids I can’t say enough about them – their effort, their determination, their joy of the game, their want to play for each other. I can’t say enough about them. It’s not really about me, it’s about them, it’s about the program and we couldn’t be happier for everybody in the Battalion program and for everybody in B.C. and Vancouver because these kids deserve it,” said the coach.

The core of the team has been together for two years. They played summer ball last year for the first time since COVID hit, said the coach, “and we decided we were going to try to keep as many kids together. We thought we had a good team and we thought ‘hey if we can kind of keep everybody together, then maybe we can make a run at it.’ But you honestly don’t believe this is ever going to happen when you start. You just go day by day and try to win every game,” said Laquaglia.

“We decided that at the beginning of the year because of the struggles for us to get a field that we would be OK with playing everybody on the road. So that’s kind of what we did. Whoever would play us, anybody and everybody, we will just take anybody on. That’s kind of what we did, we just said let’s take on anybody that would play us,” added the coach.

“We felt we were really the underdog the whole time” in Lethbridge, said the coach.

“Other teams had been here before and our program has no name nationally, nobody knows who we are. So we always felt like we would scrap and fight hard and don’t give up. We did that all year. We lost some games and we won some games but we always played hard.”

Winning pitcher Foster, a 14-year-old veteran of the Battalion, said winning the national title “feels amazing.”

The Battalion got off to a quick start against the Junior Bulls, scoring twice in the top of the first inning. They added another run in the third.

Bulls cut the margin to 3-1 in the bottom of the fourth when Noah Gruninger, who took over pitching duties in the third inning, scored from third after getting a lead-off single.

Battalion added two more in the top of the sixth with Kyle De Waal getting things started with a lead-off walk before the Junior Bulls replied with Daniel Kambeitz scoring on a sacrifice fly. The Battalion scored one more in the top of seventh to pad their lead before Foster got the Junior Bulls out quickly in the bottom of the inning, the last out being a short fly ball to right field.

Team Ontario from Nepean took home bronze with a convincing 15-2 win over Quebec in the morning game.

The host Bulls advanced to the final by hammering Ontario 12-2 in Saturday’s first semifinal while B.C. advanced with a close 12-10 decision over Quebec in the second semi.

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