The summer championship run of Whalley Little League's Major All-stars was celebrated during a Surrey city council meeting Monday, Oct. 7.
In August, the team of preteen boys went all the way to the Little League World Series a week after winning the Canadian championship in Kingston, Ont.
Wearing uniforms at Surrey City Hall, the young baseball players each had their names called by a clerk, were given certificates and posed for photos with Mayor Brenda Locke. Group photos were later taken with councillors, coaches, parents and their Canadian championship banner.
Video of the 11-minute ceremony is posted on surrey.ca, staring at the 1:16 mark.
Whalley played as Team Canada at the famous baseball tournament in Williamsport, Penn., to which the Surrey-based club returned for the first time since 2018 and seventh time in history.
“We are so fortunate to have such an amazing organization like Whalley Little League right here in Surrey," Locke said.
Coun. Doug Elford also congratulated the 12 Whalley players, aged 11 and 12.
“As someone who’s been involved with baseball many years at Newton, I’m kind-of a little bit jealous right now," Elford told the team. "I just want to acknowledge this, this is just a fantastic association and a lot of people don’t realize what you guys went through to get here. Against all those odds, you’re national champions. But to get to Williamsport and actually beat one of those teams is quite an accomplishment.”
A tournament highlight for Whalley was a huge 12-5 win over Team Puerto Rico when 12 runs were scored in the second inning and every player crossed home plate. Their games in Williamsport ended the next day with an 8-0 loss to Team Mexico at Volunteer Stadium. Later that Sunday, the Whalley players had front-row seats for the Yankees-Tigers MLB game played in Williamsport, and cameras caught their reaction when they witnessed Juan Soto at bat.
Whalley's 2024 roster includes Xavier Cabalfin, Ronan Bobiles, Ben Wegwitz, Eric Popovich, Blake Anderson, Marek Kluth, Kayden Krestanovich, Jozef Young, Joshua Hernstedt, Riley Suvilai, Ray Dhasi and Rye Precioso. Coaches are Stephen Young along with Eric Kluth and Jason Wegwitz.
On Aug. 8, it was a jubilant but rain-soaked celebration for Whalley when they clinched the 2024 Canadian Little League Championship in Kingston, where they dominated Team Alberta 10-1 in the final. Two days later, the team loaded up for a five-hour bus trip to Williamsport. There, they were "treated like superstars," according to manager Young.
"Williamsport gets packed with, like, 20,000 people or more in the streets, and each of the teams get put on floats and they're paraded through the city," Young told the Now-Leader in a mid-August phone call. "There's people everywhere and the boys sign autographs. It's beyond star treatment, I can't even explain it. ESPN is doing all these interviews with them, all of this stuff, because it's one of the biggest sporting events of the year for them."
This year marked the 11th time a team from Surrey earned a spot in the Little League World Series, according to a post on littleleague.org. This is also the 27th time Canada has been represented by British Columbia at the tournament, the most of any province in the country’s 64 appearances.