Verona and Sydenham Ballpayers Win National Championship With Kingston Colts

Jeff Green | Aug 07, 2025

Everett Walton did not have a particularly good night on Monday, but then again he was facing a pretty difficult assignment.

The 13 year old starting pitcher for the Kingston Colts, who is from Verona and graduated from the Challenge Program at Loughborough Public School in June, has been on the road with the Kingston Colts for a month now.

The team of 13 and 14 year old boys, with families and supporters in tow, first travelled to Timmins for the Ontario Championships, where they went undefeated. That meant a trip to Lethbridge for the Colts, now Team Ontario, for the Canadian Championships, between July 22-29 a five team tournament where they were competing with a team from Quebec, two teams from Alberta, and a team from British Columbia.

The Colts dominated the tournament, scoring a total of 75 runs while giving up only 16 over the six games that they played. They won the final over the host team from Lethbridge, 12-4. Everett was called upon to pitch the semi-final against Calgary, which was the closest game the Colts played in the entire tournament, but they still won comfortably, 7-4.

Once that tournament was over, the team headed to Taylor, Michigan, which is about 1 hour from Detroit, for the Junior League World Series. The opening ceremonies took place on Saturday, and the tournament opened on Sunday, August 3rd.

The Canadian Team, the Colts, had a bye on the opening day of play, and started their tournament on Sunday, against the Asia-Pacific Champion team from Chinese Taipei.

“It is a tough first game opponent,” said Lisa Walton, Everett's mom, on Monday. “The Asia-Pacific team has won in 9 of the last 11 years.”

Lisa, and Everett’s Dad Matt, have been traveling with the team ever since the Ontario playdowns in Timmins/

Chinese Taipei opened their tournament on Sunday, when they beat Panama 11-0.

Chinese Taipei quickly showed their ability to take advantage of mistakes as the game got started on Monday night.

 On the mound in the top of the first, Everett was lacking his normal control, but he was able to prevent the batters from making solid contact. Seeing eye groundball single, followed immediately by a stolen base, set the tone for the inning, and ultimately, the game. Thanks to a tremendous relay throw from Centre Fielder Cody Lyon, who is from Sydenham and attends SHS, the Colts kept the damage to a minimum in the first inning, giving up only  two runs in spite of 4 stolen bases and a couple of fielding errors.

The Colts, on the other hand, had their first base runner picked off of first base in the bottom of the first. After giving up another run in the second inning, Everett settled into a pitching rhythm, setting Taipei down in order in the third.

By this time, he was already approaching the 95 pitch limit that applies at this level of baseball. And in the fourth, he was not able to find the plate, and walks turned into runs.  Everett, having thrown 90 pitches in 3 and 1/3 innings, was pulled from the game at that point. The game took a turn for the worse, and by the time it was all over after 5 innings, the score was 13-0.

The tournament is a double elimination event, so the Colts could still make the final on the International side if they won both of their next two games. The winner of the International side plays the winner of the US side for the championship.

Everett plays Right Field when he is not pitching, and he and Cody are also two of the strongest hitters on the team. Everett went 1 for 1 in the opening game, hitting a solid line drive single to right centre. Cody was 0 for 2.

The Kingston team were competitive in their second game, on Tuesday (August 5th), and managed to take the early lead after blanking Puerto Rico in the top of the first, and scoring 3 runs in the bottom of the inning. But Puerto Rico tied the frame by scoring 3 times in the top of the second, and then took the lead with a three run 4th. Trailing 7-4 in the bottom of the 7th (the last inning at this level) the Colts had two on with no outs, but the runners were stranded on base as the next three batters made outs.

Even though the World Series did not go as planned, it has been quite a ride for the Walton family over the past month.

They moved to Verona from Toronto in 2020, a COVID refugee family, and Lisa Walton said they do not have any regrets. They love living in Verona. Lisa works virtually, and Matt works at the Verona Post office.

Cody has thrived in school. His start in baseball came with the Verona Softball association. He was a good player at that level, and decided to try out for the Colts in the Kingston baseball association and has excelled at that level

“When we moved to Verona, one of the appeals was that we were not that far from Kingston while still living in a rural town,” said Lisa. “That was partly so Everett would be able to access all that a larger City offers for activities, even though we had no idea at that time that it would be baseball.”

As for what has been going on this summer, Lisa said it has been exciting, if not tiring.

“We were home for a couple of days after Timmins, but went straight from Lethbridge to Taylor, Michigan. We are a real group now, all the families, waving the Canadian flag on the sidelines and wearing the Maple Leaf.”