Bull’s Kabayama Talks Finals

The Lethbridge Bulls punched their ticket to the 2021 WCBL finals series against the Edmonton Prospects by sweeping the Sylvan Lake Gulls in the semi-finals. The Bulls beat the Gulls back-to-back, including a nail-biting 9th inning victory on Tuesday night at Spitz Stadium. The winning play, which allowed the Bulls to pull ahead in the bottom of the night and win 3-2, was an RBI single from Ty Penner, batting in Josh Kabayama from 3rd base with a photo finish dive into home plate to end the game. Kabayama met with our team after the game to talk about it.

“It feels great!” He says. “This is what all our work up to this point adds up to. We had some struggles ending the season, and in particular we dropped a lot of games to Sylvan [Lake] during the regular season, but none of that mattered. We were able to come up with 2 wins when we needed them most.”

Kabayama was the runner for the Bull’s first run of the night as well, which ended in a similarly spectacular face-first dive to beat the catcher at home plate. We asked Josh if he had shaken loose all the gravel from his teeth yet. “We’d played our last 3 games out at Seaman Stadium,” Josh explains, “where it’s all turf. I guess I got used to sliding there because the ground’s a bit more forgiving. Definitely when I hit the dirt that first time it was a lot harder back at home.” Josh has no regrets about it though, and is just looking forward to the series against the Prospects.

“We want to go out and play our best.” He says. “We had a really strong regular season against the Prospects, but then the Gulls had a good season against us and we managed to go two-up on them. Anything can happen, but I think if we can carry the energy from the semifinals into the Edmonton series, we should do well."

Come cheer on Josh and the rest of the Bulls when they kick off their 3 game final series against the Prospects this Friday at Spitz Stadium. If required, game 3 will be back at home Sunday at 2pm. And check out all of our photos from the game at www.lethbridgesportsphotos.ca