Little Mountain LL is back for a second straight summer
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When you have a strong Little League program that has tough contests throughout the regular season, it often translates to success once you get to the summer and all-star season begins.
That's precisely how things went for Little Mountain Little League in Vancouver, British Columbia. A tough regular-season for the all-stars on the Canada Regional champion team helped them prepare and it's a huge reason why Little Mountain Little League is back at the Little League World Series in South Williamsport for a second consecutive year.
"The league, we're blessed to have a lot of players and skilled coaches that we have that don't have kids in the game. So we've been around for 15, 20 years at least. So just having strong competition within the house (is key)," Canada manager Brad Dorwart said. "I think that builds the kids ready to play a higher level of ball so when its time to go to all-star season, it's a little easier for them to kind of transition to that."
Coming out of British Columbia, Dorwart knew that like every year, it was going to be a battle if the team wanted to win provincials and head to the Canada tournament.
"Especially for BC (it's good competition). I've said this many times, you got the four finalists who were in our provincials, any one of those could be here just the same as us. All of them had great pitching, defense, offense," Dorwart said. "Sometimes it comes to the experience we have, I think is one, and how you get the kids prepared for those games. How you set them up for success is the key. The province in BC, we've won 18 of last 20 years as a representative (in provincials). It just shows you that the strength that we have."
A big strength and key for Canada is having two players back with experience at the Little League World Series. It's a hard feat for any Little Leaguer to reach the pinnacle of youth baseball and head to South Williamsport in late August. To do it twice in a row? That's even rarer.
But for Little Mountain Little League, Felix Hoyano and Cruz Krpan got that experience in 2025 and are looking to build off it and be leaders for the younger players on the team.
"Both are returning guys. Everyone else is new. We have two 11-year-olds this year. It's kind of a trend we like to have those other high-performing 11-year-olds, if they make it of course," Jones said. "If they make this journey they can be that guy, that captain, with a little bit of experience. They talk to him what it's like at certain stages and there's always that answer of they know where they're going and what the path ahead is."
Canada opened the Series on Wednesday evening at Volunteer Stadium with a first-round matchup against Seoul, South Korea, the Asia-Pacific Regional champions. No matter what that outcome was, Dorwart knew that his two returning Series participants have the leadership and experience the rest of the team can look upon for guidance.
"I do believe so, especially this group has a bunch of school friends. They're more comfortable with them talking to each other," Dorwart said. "It does help the other guys understand what it's like and it adds a bit of an incentive to them. This is what it's like, if you accomplish this then this is what's waiting for them."
Earlier this summer, Canada suffered damaging and devastating wildfires, which affected Little Mountain Little League as well. The league, located roughly just four hours from the wildfires, had many coaches and players who had families directly impacted by the wildfires.
"We do have families up in that area, because it isn't that far of a drive to go there and stuff. Of course the smoke gets blown down into lower mainland, so it's really bad. There were bad fires happening this year," Jones said.
The team also was impacted with not being able to travel to certain areas for provincials due to highways being shut down with fires wiping out roads and forests.
"It's been a big challenge for them," Jones said of the families back home nearby.
"I've said this before but it's really hard to be all this way, to go on this journey, knowing our hearts are back home," Jones said. "You have to think of everyone who's been affected, losing homes. Trying not to let it affect the kids and not affect us.
"It is something because we represent the province and represent everybody," Dorwart continued. "We keep it in the back of our minds. Hopefully that'll resolve soon, but it's hard with wildfires like that."
Dorwart noted that his team's ace pitcher suffered an injury during the all-star season, forcing Little Mountain Little League to use its Nos. 3 and 4 pitchers to secure wins.
"I would say for us it's hard to say (what our strength is). We are quite well rounded, pitching is one of our depths I'd say," Dorwart said. "We had some injuries with our starting pitcher, so we had to go without our top guy for awhile and go to a three and a four guy. They've been able to perform as well as our first and second guy."
And Dorwart and Little Mountain are hoping for more of that pitching depth success in South Williamsport.