The input and output of the Sudbury Voyageurs baseball program is growing, bigger and better, no matter how you size things up these days.

With the start of PBLO (Premier Baseball League of Ontario) action for the locals set to (tentatively) start this weekend, there is an excitement in the air that goes well beyond the fact that the 2026 calendar year will see no less than three products of the system suit up with NCAA Division I teams (Gavin Roy and Scott Rienguette with the Washington State Cougars; Gabe Larocque with the San Francisco Dons).

For starters, the program has added a fourth team to the mix, welcoming the 13U Voyageurs to a stable that already features the 14U/16U/18U entries. In fact, this is the first year the PBLO will offer league play for the first year teenagers, with Baseball Academy founder Jean-Gilles Larocque sliding back to head coach a crew that he sees as the very base of future success.

“Everyone needs to develop,” said Larocque, acknowledging that pitchers will be curtailed on pitch counts that are likely even more stringent than Baseball Ontario guidelines. “Are we going to lose games because of that? 100% - but I don’t care if we are losing games at 13U.”

While there are mixed feelings about at what age more competitive baseball programs should be introduced, Larocque is comfortable that if done properly, the benefits will be there in the end.

“This is just a different type of baseball with what is going on mechanically, the warm-ups and band work and that sort of thing,” he said. “It takes a bit of time when we get them at 14U to point them even more in the right direction,” Larocque noted, all while acknowledging that the excellent work that is being done by the traditional youth programs operated by Sudbury Minor and Valley Minor Baseball and the like.

Former Voyageurs and current Laurentian University student-athlete Ryan Lacasse steps in to coach the 14U group, also cutting their teeth in PBLO play this year. “They are a little green as there was no 13U age group last year, so it will be really interesting to see the growth. At that 13 to 15 age group, you can see some huge jumps; I think any sport is like that,” said Larocque.

The likes of Owen Lamothe, Callum Hopkins and Nathan Omeljaniuk return to the 16U fold to provide an element of stability to a team that features plenty of “new” this summer – not the least of which is new head coach and former member of the Canadian Junior National team, Jaden Griffin.

A left-handed pitcher in his playing days, Griffin was born in Calgary, moved to Nova Scotia at the age of three and developed in the Halifax – Lower Sackville region, eventually accepting a scholarship and enjoying four wonderful years with the VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University) Rams in Richmond (Virginia).

Now 25 years of age, Griffin was directed to Sudbury via a one-time teammate at the Vauxhall Academy of Baseball in Alberta, anxious to contribute in a few different ways after arriving in northern Ontario back in November.

“The biggest two things for me are pitching and strength and conditioning; those are my specialties,” said Griffin. “At high-school age and younger, you really want to focus on just building a good base of general strength. From there, we can work on everything.”

Hard work is not something the young man who came within one pitch of an immaculate inning in his senior year at VCU (three strikeouts for a pitcher on just nine pitches), something that he apparently holds in common with a good handful of the young men now under his watch.

“The amount of kids in Sudbury that want to play baseball, want to be good at baseball is shocking,” said Griffin. “The kids here want to get better. They have a real interest in the sport.”

Colton Nowoselsky would certainly like to believe that the description offered by Griffin would have applied to him, from the time he made the move to ranking baseball at the top of his charts in terms of sporting interest, right through to his upcoming second year with the 18U Voyageurs.

“I’ve played basketball pretty much my whole life – but baseball has always been my main sport,” said the 18 year-old grade 12 catcher at St Charles College. With an eye towards moving on to a junior college south of the border in 2027, Nowoselsky is hopeful that another winter of constant training paves the way to the type of progress needed to attract attention at the next level.

“I am excited to see all of the work I put in during the off-season come through for me,” he said. “I had a good year last year, but I wanted to do better. That’s always my goal. I think I’ve done enough this off-season to see it work out.”

The 90 pull-down that he has been chasing for years has been conquered. Pop times have dropped from a 2.2 / 2.3 range to sub two seconds at 1.90. All the while, he continues to like what he brings to the plate.

“I don’t think pitchers like facing me,” said Nowoselsky, who struck out just twice throughout the entire summer of 2025. “I’m a good contact guy. I don’t have a lot of power but I will hit the odd ball to the gap. I always like to have competitive at-bats, not waste any pitches.”

Nowoselsky and his St Charles Cardinals teammates will get some swings in game play this week as SCC travels south for games against St Andrew’s College and a rep team from the Muskokas on Monday followed by matchups with Upper Canada College and Sinclair Secondary School in Whitby.

In the on-deck circle: other odds and ends …. rounding out the lineup of Voyageurs coaches this summer is Parker Savard, a local AAA hockey talent who went on to play NCAA baseball with the St Cloud State Huskies who will guide the 18U Voyageurs on the diamonds …. meanwhile out in Pullman (Washington), Gavin Roy continues to shine for the Cougars, starting all 44 games this year and leading his team in hitting (.352 average), hits (56) and hit by pitch (12), second in doubles (11) and walks (22) and third in runs scored (33) and RBIs (27) … assuming diamond #1 at the Terry Fox Sports Complex is a go – and signs on Friday and the weekend were encouraging – both the 16U and 18U Voyageurs will play host to the Ontario Yankees this weekend