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A Humboldt ball team is stepping onto the world stage as the Juice Pigs prepare to compete at the World Series National Slow Pitch in Kamloops, B.C. later this month.
The team has been around for quite some time, and this isn't the first time they have competed on the world stage.
“The team has been around for 25 years. It's just a bunch of local people, family. And so, it's a great group,” said Nicole Haeusler of the Juice Pigs.
"We're just a bunch of competitive people. Just wanted to play higher level ball,” added Brad Haeusler, who has been playing for 10–15 years for sure or longer.
To qualify, Nicole explained, “They place in the top settings, and then you're qualified to go.” This year, “there's 234 teams competing and you get put in two divisions and you play probably about 36 teams that you're competing against.”
The upcoming trip marks the team’s second time at the World Series National Slow Pitch in Kamloops. “First time we went there, we ended up placing 4th in our division. So, we're hoping to repeat that again or do better this time around,” Brad recalled.
The tournament will run four days. “We will be playing ball for four days. We're going to go up a little bit ahead of time just to get settled in. We have coaches' meetings a day before and do some traveling sightseeing just to see BC a little bit,” Nicole said.
Looking ahead, Brad noted, “We're hoping to do a little better this time, but we got a pretty much half of our team this year is new, so if we can place top 4 again would be nice.”
Brad also serves as coach. “Yeah, I kind of help out with everything,” he said. As for the team’s unique name, “Just a random name we came up with.”
Their jerseys feature “a logo with a juiced jacked pig.”
Fans can follow along online.
“We have a Juice Pig Slow Pitch Facebook page. You are welcome to go on to there. We will be live streaming our games. We will post our schedule once we know the schedule and just remember BC time difference,” said Nicole.
The Juice Pigs leave on August 22, with games running August 29 to September 1.
Brad added a final note of appreciation: “Thank you to our sponsors. We've got a guy from the States that sponsors us, so it's pretty awesome, we got Gun Dog Kennels, and then we got a local sponsor this year.”
Good luck to all those competing on the local team.