WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. - Canada will have to wait another day to see if it can continue its dramatic run at the Little League World Series.
An elimination game between Canada (2-1) and Puerto Rico (2-1) was postponed because of rain on Tuesday. The game was rescheduled for Wednesday.
The Canadian champions - the Whalley Major Allstars from Surrey, B.C. - are coming off thrilling victories over Mexico and Spain in must-win games after opening the tournament with a loss to Panama.
The winner of the Puerto Rico-Canada game will advance to the international semifinal to face the loser of a Japan-South Korea contest.
Canada beat Spain 2-1 in 10 innings on a walk-off single on Saturday before holding on to knock off Mexico 6-4 on Monday. Mexico had the bases loaded in the ninth, but Canadian reliever Nate Colina got his team out of a jam.
The Whalley team’s resilience has captured the attention of the baseball community in B.C.
Nathan Parade de la Feraude, an assistant coach with the Whalley Chiefs senior team, says everyone on his men’s squad has been talking about the Canadian Little Leaguers.
“We play gritty, tough out, hustle baseball,” he said of the Whalley mentality. “It’s no surprise we’ve been able to climb back into games and steal some victories.”
Parade de la Feraude played on the Whalley team that made it to the Little League World Series in 2005 and called it “one of the best summers of my life.”
“My teammates are still the men I call brothers, I still play baseball with a lot of them,” said Parade de la Feraude, who trained some of the current Little Leaguers last summer. “The experience cemented the love of the game in most of us. It gave me the drive to pursue baseball at a college level and to give back as a coach.”
Parade de la Feraude figures registration for Whalley baseball will get a boost because of the Little League success.
David Laing, executive director for Baseball B.C., thinks that could be true for the province as a whole, too.
“I think every time our sport gets publicity, whether it be the Blue Jays being successful or the (Vancouver) Canadians having another playoff run at Nat Bailey (Stadium in Vancouver), or our little leaguers from Whalley running around and taking on the world, it generates good interest, and any time we get good interest, we get more and more people wanting to try our game,” he said.
Laing said the Canadian team came into the event with the right attitude.
“I don’t think anyone within the group had really crazy expectations,” he said. “I think they were just going to go and play and see what happened.”
• READ MORE: ‘Do or die’ time for Whalley, who fell in first game of Little League World Series.
Team Canada plays in the International bracket, which includes seven other teams. A total of 16 teams play at the Little League World Series, a 10-day tournament that concludes this coming Sunday (Aug. 26) with a championship game between the U.S. and International pool winners.
CLICK HERE for the full schedule at the Little League World Series.
In Quebec, during the Canadian Little League Championship, the Whalley squad went undefeated in eight games to win the national title on Aug. 11. They capped the tourney with a 11-0 victory over Team Atlantic (Glace Bay), in a game called after four innings due to the “mercy” rule of scoring 10 runs more than the competition.
The team, during a summer to remember, booked its trip to Quebec on July 28 after winning the provincial title in Trail with a 6-1 victory over Lynn Valley.
This is the sixth time Whalley Little League has earned a trip to Williamsport (previously in 1973, 1978, 1997, 2005 and 2006), and the 21st time that a team from British Columbia has earned the nod, including 13 of the last 14 tournaments.
Last summer in Williamsport, a team from White Rock opened the Little League World Series with a 12-2 win over Team Italy. The team eventually placed third in the International bracket of the tourney. The 2017 Team Canada finished with a 2-2 record, first beating Italy and Venezuela (7-3), followed by losses to Japan (10-0) and Mexico (6-2).