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When Marika Lyszczyk played her first game this season with the Whalley Chiefs, the all-boys’ baseball team, she made history as the first female to play in the senior B.C. Premier Baseball League (PBL).

But for the 18-year-old, it felt like the most natural thing, because she had been playing baseball with boys since she was six.

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“They didn’t have baseball for girls so I had to play with the boys,” said Lyszczyk, a Grade 12 student at South Delta Secondary.

She also played softball for a girls’ team but chose in Grade 7 between the two similar, but different, games.

“At that point, I just happened to be a little bit better at baseball,” she said. “I sort of liked the game better. It was a better game. And the fields were better.”

She’s played in the junior PBL for four or five years and has always felt like part of the team.

“They’re like my brothers and they treat me like one of the guys,” she said.

Photo by Arlen Redekop / PNG

Lyszczyk has dreams of playing in college next year, which wouldn’t be a first, having a woman play on a men’s team, but it’s rare. She’s been accepted to Douglas College, which has a men’s team, and she’s made her own recruiting video and has spoken to a few universities in the U.S.