Heather Healey will be vying to make her third World Cup women’s baseball appearance next year, but the baseball star from Paradise will first have to go through a qualification process with Baseball Canada’s squad.
Healey, 21, was one of 20 athletes named to the Canadian women’s national team which will take to the ball field at the COPABE Women’s Baseball World Cup Qualifier in Aguascalientes, Mexico, August 18-25.
The qualification tournament marks the first time that a women’s baseball world qualifier will take place for the Americas.
Healey is a veteran of two women’s baseball World Cups, in 2014 (extra-inning loss to Australia in the bronze-medal game) and in 2016 (Canada lost to Japan in the gold-medal game).
Healey, a two-time provincial female athlete of the year, also played for Canada’s under-20 team in 2016, at the at the Under-20 Women's International Cup in the Dominican Republic.
Canada, ranked No. 2 in the most recent WBSC Women’s Baseball world rankings, is coming off a 2018 season that included a bronze medal at the WBSC Women’s Baseball World Cup.
Healey did not compete in the World Cup last summer, as she was in training with the RCMP. She is currently working as a Mountie in Saskatchewan, where she is also coaching minor hockey. Last season, she organized an under-15 tournament for minor players in the Loon Lake, Mawka Sahgaiehcan First Nation area.
Healey, who turns 22 in eight days, and Katie Hagan of Dartmouth, N.S., are the only players from east of Quebec on the latest Team Canada roster.