The Laurentian Voyageurs men’s baseball team enters the 2026 campaign with far more stability than recent years, partially due to the return of coach Patrick Whalen for a second year, partially due to the talent at his disposal.
“We didn’t lose many players from last year – and we have a lot of strong rookies,” noted local product Noah Léveillé, a graduate of E.S.C. Champlain now in his fourth year of Mechanical Engineering studies at L.U. - and his four year of OUA (Ontario University Athletics) baseball.
A three game exhibition set last weekend in which L.U. faced Queen’s, the University of Toronto and Laurier only added to the air of optimism that permeated diamond #1 at the Terry Fox Sports Complex this week.
“We did pretty well, all really close games,” said the 21 year-old outfielder / relief pitcher, an 0-3 mark looking far better when one considers that none of the setbacks were by more than three runs. “It was really good compared to previous years.”
Scores in the range of 6-4 and 5-2 were signs of nice solid outings, something which hasn’t always been the case since the baseball program at Laurentian came to be in the fall of 2018.
“We played good defense and had really strong pitching, which was awesome,” said Léveillé.
The challenge, it would seem, will be to find a way to plate enough runs to register a few victories along the way when opponents are held to four runs or less. “There is obviously some good pitching but the OUA is a hitters friendly league,” added Léveillé. “Pitchers here love to start off with fastballs in this league.”
“For us to have a successful season, we have to step to the plate anticipating a fastball early in the count and jump on that, hit the fastball. Attack early and swing away – play a little small ball.”
Given all of the above, fair to say that first year Laurentian starting pitcher Will Burns will likely be running against the grain a little bit.
An 18 year-old native of Timmins who did not embrace baseball in any kind of a competitive sense until he joined the Sudbury U16 Voyageurs in 2024, the Earth Sciences freshman and budding geologist is not likely to rev things up and just throw the heater past one batter after another.
“My four seam fastball tops out at about 84 MPH, but it moves like a two seam fastball; it has a tail on it,” said Burns, who struck out nine in his pre-season debut last weekend. “I also have a good curveball and a change-up.”
His ability to locate is key – which is somewhat surprising when one is reminded of his lack of baseball experience, relative to most of his peers, his interest in the sport sparked a little by the fact that he knew he could give batters a bit of a different look.
“There wasn’t really much baseball in Timmins but I really liked watching the (Blue) Jays growing up,” said Burns. “And I knew that I was left-handed and thought that would be an advantage.”
Still, for as much as the talented lefty has taken to the mound at his home field of Terry Fox, Burns is more than happy to take on the challenge of starting assignments on the road.
"For me, personally, I am not a big fan of turf mounds" - which the Sudbury venue is equipped with. "With turf, I feel like my back foot does not have a lot of grip compared to the dirt mound. I like pitching pretty where everywhere else but the turf mound."
Burns will have the chance to do that a few times this year as Laurentian opens regular season play by travelling to the nation’s capital this weekend for two games each against the Ottawa Gee Gees and Carleton Ravens.
The team is out of town again on September 12th (in Toronto vs TMU (Toronto Metropolitan University) Bold and on September 20th (in Kingston vs Queen's Gaels), before enjoying their only games at home on September 25th (University of Toronto Varsity Blues) and September 26th (York Lions).
Laurentian 2026 Baseball Voyageurs: Kyle Kennedy, Luke Arruda, Devan Madore, Ryan Lacasse, Dylan Rudge, Pearce King, Johnny O’Reilly, Noah Léveillé, Fynn Patterson, Noah Portelance, Will Arsenault, Lucas Gutscher, Anthony Gutscher, James Dixon, Dillion Rosset, Lucas Carriere, Braidy Birdsall, Mike Hall, Ryan Worton, Nick Amedeo, Will Hillyard, Will Burns, Ethan Brisbois and Carson Tardio.
