Canada looks to learn from loss and keep on playing at LLWS
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Another day, another game.
Throughout this summer postseason run for Little Mountain Little League from Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada, coach Brad Dorwart and his assistants have a simple, yet great philosophy.
"We've used the expression in our season: you draw a line in the sand, you step over it. Whatever happened, happened," Dorwart said. "You learn from it. Now we can try to do the same thing. How do you adjust? If you don't adjust, you're going to do the same thing again and again."
Canada drew that line, stepped over it and it's on to the next game on Saturday at Volunteer Stadium.
Sure, Canada would have loved to have upset Seoul, South Korea on Wednesday and get a win to advance to face Brno, Czechia in the winners' bracket, but Dorwart and his team are simply adjusting to the next opponent on the schedule and shaking that loss off.
"Right now our focus is to get the boys changed, get them with their parents, have dinner, have some fun and let them be kids again for the rest of the day," Dorwart said.
Facing Seoul, South Korea in the first round is a brutal draw for any team in the International field, and coming into the game, Dorwart and his team knew it would be hard.
"Obviously Korea's a very good team. Their hitters adjusted to what we were doing and our pitchers made a mistake, they jumped on it," Dorwart said. "It's gonna happen. They're 12-year-olds, at times when one mistake happens, it could lead to another. Especially for a lot of the boys. It's their first time seeing this (crowd). The jitters and stuff that haven't happened for a long time happened."
While the result on the scoreboard wasn't what Canada wanted, there were still plenty of highlights in said loss. That included Jason Mezzarobba making an athletic snag in foul territory at catcher.
"I can't wait to see the replay because he was going away from it, all I could see was his torso, he was gone and all I sa aws his arm come up. It's definitely a highlight," Dorwart said. "That's one thing I like about that kid. He's always fighting through it and a spark plug for that raw emotion. That's stuff you wanna see and he's just giving it his all because he knows to make that out, maybe that'll spark the boys to come out and battle. I know when I left he as getting all iced up, he definitely deserves that."
Canada pitcher Jacob Massel threw 2 1/3 innings against the Asia-Pacific Regional champions, and while he gave up six hits and four earned runs, he still found positives to take away, such as being excited for some strikeouts against Asia-Pacific's big bats.
"Jacob was even saying this is the toughest team he ever had to pitch against. … He was pumped he was able to strike out their top hitter and some other guys. He was jacked up about that kind of stuff," Dorwart said.
Canada has everyone available to pitch on Saturday against either Mexico or Australia at Volunteer Stadium. That speaks to some of the depth the team has on the mound.
"I have all my pitchers available because Kian (Sandhu) started last batter at 49. I could go back to Jacob and Kian," Dorwart said, also noting the availability of Cruz Krpan and Felix Hoyano, two players who had time at the Series last year for Canada.
"They're both available to pitch. Cruz hasn't really thrown a bunch from the mound, but you see him at shortstop and he's throwing as hard as he ever has," Dorwart said. "His elbow's looking very nice. We were thinking maybe of throwing him, but at this point, just let Kian go to 50 and if we did get that last out, then e can maybe look at those options and bring someone else in. Save pitchers, move on to the next day and wipe the slate clean and start over again.
"That's the messages to the boys right now. We have everybody, we're good to go, lets take it one step at a time," Dorwart continued. "I know in this bracket, if you win your next game, the game is either a day or so after that. Win and it's a day after that. I got a lot of pitchers, especially with Felix and Cruz. I have eight or nine pitchers I can throw out there."