Two baseball players from Barrhead became national champions this past summer after helping their team, the Edmonton Cubs, win gold at the 2018 Canadian Little League Championships in Edmonton from July 14-22.
Landon Petiot and Jayden Cramer also joined their Cubs at the 2018 Senior Little League World Series in Easley, South Carolina from July 28 to Aug. 4, where they finished seventh out of 12 teams.
“That’s the best result for Team Canada ever at that tournament,” said Edmonton Cubs coach Shane Jones.
So how did two Barrhead boys come to be on a team playing at nationals and the the world series?
Jones said Little League Edmonton is broken into three zones that encompasses the city and surrounding area, and the Community Park zone extends out to Barrhead.
It should be noted that the “Senior” level of Little League is for 15 and 16-year-old players. Both Landon and Jayden are 16 years old.
“We play on full Major League baseball-sized fields. It’s real baseball,” Jones said.
The Little League season consists of 10 games, with the top team heading on to the Canadian Little League Championships. Over the past two years, the Edmonton Cubs won their way into the national championship, though each time they placed third.
The Cubs have played in the Canadian Little League Championships over the past two years and placed third twice.
This year, they were actually hosting the Canadian Little League Championships, which meant they automatically had a spot in the tournament regardless of how their regular season went.
“This year we were lucky enough to win the whole thing,” he said.
In fact, the Edmonton Cubs did more than win the Canadian Little League Championships — they swept the entire tournament, winning all six round robin games and two playoff matches.
Their final game was against Team Atlantic (Cape Breton), which they won 13-4. The only other opponent to give them any trouble was Team B.C., who they defeated 8-1.
What made the difference this year compared to the past two years was a skilled pitching roster. Jones noted that in Little League, players can only throw 95 pitches before they are required to rest.
“So you have to build a team that has strong enough pitching to get you through an entire 10 day tournament. Obviously the rest of your team has to play quite well too, but pitching is a very important thing.”
Landon was one of their regular pitchers and put in a strong performance this year, but Jayden — an outfielder — also stepped up to the mound to pitch against Saskatchewan, sparing their stronger arms for later games.
“We won that game handily. But it was nice because we didn’t have to use any of our regular pitchers,” Jones said.
Winning the gold qualified the Edmonton Cubs to represent Canada at the 2018 Senior Little League World Series.
Jones noted Team Canada traditionally struggles at this tournament because they’re not used to the high heat and humidity in the U.S. Sure enough, that week saw temperatures reach above 40C with high humidity.
In their first game, they played Team Italy and lost 2-1 in 11 innings. Because this was a double knockout tournament, that pushed them into a lower bracket.
Their next game was against Asia Pacific, who they defeated easily 8-0. That put them into a second game with Team Italy.
Things started off well, with the score tied at 1-1 after four innings. But then the rain started falling, and the game had to be put off.
“It rained two days straight, like you’ve never seen rain before in your life,” noted Jones.
When the game resumed, Edmonton couldn’t use the same pitcher and ended up running into some errors. Sadly, the game ended in an 8-1 loss.
“Just being there was awesome. We wish we could have won a couple more games, but that was pretty good,” noted Jones.
