The Vancouver baseball team falls to Japan on Wednesday, ending the best showing by a Canadian team in nearly a decade
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“Why not us?”
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The image of the handwritten sign thrust high in the air at Volunteer Stadium in Wiliiamsport, Penn., was broadcast to millions of homes on Wednesday, as Vancouver’s Little Mountain baseball team — already triumphant in the underdog role twice this week — took aim at another Goliath (Godzilla?) in Japan at the Little League World Series.
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The line was actually the closing from a poem one of the Little Mountain coaches had written before last year’s trip to the LLWS, which chronicled their journey through district, provincial and national tournaments. But it resonated even stronger this year.
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The Vancouver team had beaten Panama in extra innings on Monday, then taken down South Korea on Tuesday, with the two knockout wins over favoured competition taking them the furthest a Canadian team had made it since 2017. Their 3-1 record coming into Wednesday’s game was the first time they’d had three wins since 1998.
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Sunrise
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Canada has never won the Little League World Series, with Ontario’s Stoney Creek team coming the closest. They made the championship game in 1965, where they lost 3-1 to Windsor Locks from Connecticut.
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For Gary Hoyano, the belief was there in the stands and with his son Felix on the field, who was Canada’s starting pitcher on the day.
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“When you get down here, you don’t really expect to necessarily win … but why not? Why not imagine that you got a chance? And this year we did so well. It was pretty incredible that we won three games. It’s been a historic thing. It’s been pretty amazing,” he said.
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But in the end, the mountain was too big for the boys from Little Mountain. Their uphill battle grew steep by the third inning, when Japan’s Taiga Yumitori’s three-run blast bounced off the top of the right-field wall to give Japan a 7-0 lead.
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Final score, Japan 7, Canada 3.
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Japan advances to face Nicaragua’s Ministerio Sobre Las Alas Del Aguila on Thursday. The tournament is broken into two brackets — 10 American teams on one side, and 10 international teams on the other, with the two champions meeting in the title game on Sunday.
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Japan had 10 hits to Canada’s four on the day, though Felix Hoyano got Canada on the board with an RBI single in the fourth inning. At the top of the fifth, Canada got an RBI single from Lucas Izen and a fielder’s choice from Jean Ramos to make it 7-3, but that was as close as they’d make it.
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Gary Hoyano and his wife had rebooked their flights twice this week as Little Mountain kept winning, and while some parents had their company laptops on their knees during the game, the Hoyanos were lucky enough to be able to send a few emails to their bosses back home to beg off work.
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They’ll be back in Canada by Thursday night as, this time, there’s no need to rebook their flights.
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“I’m feeling spent. Completely exhausted. And (the team is) doing all the work,” Hoyano said, laughing.
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“It’s really emotionally draining, exciting, and all those things that make us love sports. But it’s got to end at some point, right?
