A girl from Quebec is turning heads at the Little League Canadian Championship

Annabelle Guay keeps blasting monster home runs — and striking out boys

Jesse Johnston, CBC News, August 11, 2016

There is a player at the Little League Canadian Championship whose towering home runs are the talk of the tournament.

This player also has an electric fastball that misses the bats of opposing players like it has an aluminum allergy.

Photo ci-dessus : Guay plays right field, first base and pitches for Quebec. (Cliff Shim/CBC)

Did we mention that this player, Annabelle Guay, is the only girl playing this week at Hastings Park in Vancouver?

"She plays her best and I think she has a good team spirit," said Guay's mother, Jessica Mancini.

"She wants to give as much as the others on the team."

Monster home runs
Guay, who plays for Quebec, smashed a pitch over the left field wall against Ontario on Monday afternoon.

In her next 'at bat', she clobbered the ball even further.

It cleared the hill behind the fence and landed smack dead in the middle of Hastings Street.

Guay cracked a smile when she was asked what the pitcher's face looked like after she hit her bomb.

"I didn't actually look but I imagine that he would be really disappointed," she said.

"Plus, I'm a girl and I hit a home run."

Baseball newbie
It didn't take Guay long to pick up the game.

Mancini says she put on a glove for the first time four years ago.

"She didn't have any clue how to throw a ball, how to catch a ball," Mancini said.
"She had a coach who was a very nice man and he saw something in her."

Off to the semis
Quebec faces Whalley Little League in the semi finals on Friday.

Whalley won when the two teams met earlier in the tournament but Guay caught the attention of manager Marc Chiasson.

"She's one of the top players on their team if not the top player on their team," Chiasson said.

"She has great hands, she fields the ball as well as anyone on that team and when she pitched against us, she shut us down for two or three innings."

Hastings will play Southern Alberta in the other semi final matchup.

The championship game will be played at noon on Saturday.

Girl power
If Quebec can capture the Canadian championship this weekend, the team will go to Williamsport, Pennsylvania to represent Canada at the Little League World Series.

Guay would then become the fourth Canadian girl to play in Williamsport, joining Kelly Craig (Trail Little League, 1990), Katie Reyes (Hastings Community Little League, 2009) and Emma March (South Vancouver Little League, 2014).

Only 18 girls from around the world have played in the tournament.

Guay hasn't thought about it much.

She's too busy hitting home runs.

Revue de presse publiée par Jacques Lanciault.