The Howe Sound Cannons have done what no other Squamish baseball team has ever done before, according to the team’s coach.
On Labour Day weekend, the men’s team captured the provincial baseball championship.
“It’s pretty significant, it’s the first time that...anybody in Squamish has ever won a provincial championship in baseball — youth, or men, or anything,” coach Jeremy Galley told The Chief.
The three-day event saw the Cannons open the three-game round robin portion of the tournament with a 5-1 win over their local league rivals from North Shore Mens Baseball league, the Pirates.
Lead off hitter Jack Thompson led the offense with a three-hit game, while Cam Huston added two hits.
Galley went all seven innings, striking out 10 on the mound.
Sunday morning saw the Cannons improve to 2-0 on the weekend as they took down Kamloops 10-0.
Thompson got the win on the mound while the offense was paced by two hit games from Huston, Galley and Justin Kraz.
It was a quick turnaround for Howe Sound, as they were back on the diamond on Sunday afternoon against a very strong Newton Beavers squad based out of Surrey.
The Lower Mainland Baseball League’s Number 1 seed proved to be a little too much to handle for the Cannons on this day, as the Beavers squeezed out a 4-2 victory in a back-and-forth affair.
Alex Wishnicki pitched well in the loss for the Cannons. Kurtis Malm had two hits.
Championship Monday saw a semi-final match up with the tournament favorite the Coquitlam Cardinals.
This was a great ball game from the start with both pitchers locked in.
The game was 0-0 until the fifth inning when back-to-back RBI singles from Thompson and Justin Lawerance saw the Cannons take a 2-0 lead. Brehan Lawerance would make it 4-0 in the sixth inning with a two-run single, before Galley and Kraz added RBI hits in the seventh.
Sean Callegari was lights out on the mound allowing one hit while striking out 11.
The win would advance the Cannons to the finals and rematch with the Newton Beavers.
The Cannons bats came to play in the final, pounding out 16 hits.
Calem Gardner and Kraz both had three hits.
Howe Sound went up 2-0 in the top of the first before Newton got on back to make it 2-1 after 1.
The score stayed the same until the fourth inning when Howe Sound went on 3-1.
Newton answered right back in the bottom half to cut the lead to 3-2.
The fifth inning proved to be the difference in this game as the Cannon’s bats would explode for six runs on seven hits to put the game out of reach.
The final score was 10-3. Sean Callegari pitched the first two innings before Galley took over and pitched the last five for the win.
“I’m so proud of this team, these guys battled all weekend,” said manager Alex Wishinicki in a news release.
“You look at the scores of the games today and it doesn’t do it justice. The games were tight, one swing the other way in either of those games and we could have easily lost. Those teams we played today are loaded with former college and university players top to bottom, they are good good teams and we got nothing but respect for them.”
“I’ll say our defense was the reason we won this title,” said Galley in the release. “Guys were playing out of position or coming into games in tough situations, Kevin Smillie and Wishy coming off the bench to make great catches in the final. Jack at shortstop all weekend, that kid is a stud in the field, makes the hard plays look easy. It really took every single person on our roster and I could not be more proud of the boys.”
Galley said taking the provincial is a huge accomplishment, given that Squamish isn’t known for baseball. “[It’s] something we are very proud of,” he said.
