Team Ontario uses positivity to turn tough season around

By Lethbridge Herald on August 3, 2023.

Herald Photo by Justin Seward Team B.C. catcher Lucas Smith tags out Team Ontario's Cole Williams at home plate during Junior Canadian Little League Championship action at Spitz Stadiun on Thursday.

A berth into  the Canadian Junior Little League Championship  baseball tournament  may have been a long shot for Team Ontario’s Cornwall River Rats at the beginning of their season.

The team had a tough start to the season, losing close to 30 straight games before the thought of turning their season around clicked in.

“The start of the season was rough but we’re doing pretty good now,” said Dallas Lemoyre.

The rough early stretch often saw the players having their heads down with the amount of losing the team was doing.

“But once we started practicing two, three times a week, like everybody started hustling.  Now we’re a lot better,” said Lemoyre.

The team started using positivity by keeping their heads up and hustling to turn their fortunes around on the diamond.

“It helped us beat Oakville in provincials and it really helps when we’re out in the field and we’re exhausted to pull something out of our back pocket and make the play,” said Lemoyre.

As the season progressed, Cornwall’s mindset was about hard work.

“We would always think that teams just as good as us, we can beat them, but we have to play as hard as we can to win,” he said.

Some of the results of the positivity shown were coming close to beating good teams.

“Once we ended that, we thought we could be anybody and that’s a good thought to have,” said Lemoyre.

Assistant coach Pierre Jodoin said they (the players) went to work.

“We pushed them quite a bit at the beginning and a lot of them had to learn the game right from scratch and they gelled together,” said Jodoin.

Jodoin thought the turnaround came in one game against a highly rated team in Quebec where the River Rats beat them.

“And right from then on, they  believed in themselves,” he said.

“These kids should be proud,” said Jodoin.

“They achieved something they didn’t believe in and yeah they’re good,”  said Jodoin.

He agreed that this run only has strengthen the Little League Program in  the city of 50,000.

“The community is realizing, hey we’ve got kids representing Ontario from our hometown,” said Jodoin.

“We’re only 50,000 people ,and there’s only eight that shows up for try outs, and they do this. The other kids, they’re looking at that, hey I want to be part of this. It really did a lot of good.”

Lemoyre said it means a lot, when it comes to being at the Championship.

“Last time we (Cornwall) were here … was 2009,” said Lemoyre.

“So it’s pretty big of a deal. I think everybody here, it’s their first time and it’s been very fun,” said Lemoyre.

Lemoyre feels the team are very inclusive at this event to the point where they want to get to know each other ,the field is  well maintained and a cool atmosphere.

Team Ontario lost their first game in the tournament, 6-5 to Team B.C., on Thursday to drop their record at 2-1 and will face undefeated Quebec (3-0) today at 8:30 a.m.

Quebec defeated Alberta 15-1 in first game of the day.Atlantic and Alberta will wrap up Friday at 1:30 p.m.