Whalley Junior Chiefs won a league championship for the first time in nearly a decade.
At Mundy Park in Coquitlam on Sunday, Aug. 4, the Chiefs beat UBC Thunder 4-3 in the B.C. Premier Baseball League provincial final.
Heading into playoffs, Whalley finished fifth in the regular season with 30 wins and 18 losses. Home and away, the Chiefs had identical 15-9 records in the 13-team Junior division.
"The players started playing really well from basically May long weekend on," manager Travis Grozdanich reported. "The coaching staff told them, you know, some teams will plateau at this time of the season and some teams will go in the tank, others will get better. We told them to trust the process and keep going on the incline they were going on."
Grozdanich said it was the Junior Chiefs' first B.C. title since 2015.
"We're all super stoked about that," he added.
"Going into the season they were pretty quiet, pretty tame as a group, you know, needed a lot of the words of encouragement to keep up on the bench, you know, keep theirs voices up on the bench and stuff like that. It was a lot of hard work and practice that paid off in the end."
The provincial championship marks the end of the Junior season.
"We celebrated on the field for probably an hour and a half afterwards, and we had a team wind-up before the playoffs at the ballpark, a barbecue with the kids and parents," Grozdanich said.
"This win was a good group effort by everyone, including the players, coaches and parents. The players, they won it by gelling together as the season went along and went on a mission."
The 2024 Whalley Junior Chiefs are Alexander Weeks, Anjo Razon, Bode Lynch, Callum Whidden, Dayton Wicker, Dominik Lakusta, Eli St. Jacque, Jack Bello, Jimmy Mellios, Leo Gama, Liam Smith, Marcus DeGroot, Mathias Fruhm, Mylan Mingo, Nathaniel Miranda, Noah Logue, Ryder Isfeld and Zack Kluth. Team officials are Travis Grozdanich (manager), Ari Mellios (assistant coach), Matt Liberty (assistant coach/pitching coach), Steve Grewal (general manager) and Paul Hargreaves (franchise owner).
"Bode Lynch, Jack Bello and Alexander Weeks stood out (in playoffs)," Grozdanich noted. "But all in all, the team played well together, from the players on the bench making sure they were in every play to warming up the next pitcher to the players on the field being ready and wanting the ball hit to them."
At provincials, the Chiefs' 18-player roster was bolstered by a pair of Bantam call-ups (Chance Miller, Marco Morais). The players range from 15 to 17 years of age.
Grozdanich expects the majority of his players will come back next season with the Chiefs, either graduating to the Senior team or playing again on the Junior squad.
