Verge: Psota brings focus, wisdom to Women’s National Team coaching staff

After a long and successful playing career with the Women’s National Team, Kate Psota has joined the coaching staff. Photo: Baseball Canada

July 16, 2023

By Melissa Verge

Canadian Baseball Network

Pluck. Pluck.

The outfield sprinkled with bright pops of yellow dandelions is too tempting for Kate Psota’s young teammates.

The batter, the ball, and baseball is forgotten, as little hands become weed eaters during a summer game at the diamond.

But it’s short-lived. Not on Psota’s watch. Although she’s just as young as her counterparts, she’s not here for the dandelion picking.

“You'd be turning around be like ‘hey, pay attention you've got to move over here or throw the ball there,’” Psota recalls her mom telling her of her concentration on the diamond.

And so the days of saving dandelions (and base hits) began.

Off the diamond, she was just as focused on the sport. The Burlington, Ont., native would take in Blue Jays games, and know the team inside and out from as young as five and six years old.

“My dad would come down and be like ‘Who’s on third, is that so and so?’ and I’m like ‘That's not so and so, that's you know Kelly Gruber at third like what are you doing,’” Psota said.

That attention to the sport never wavered, following the now 37-year-old throughout her career. Long past the days of her teammates picking dandelions in the outfield, baseball stayed with her.

Psota played with Team Canada from 2004 to 2018, a lengthy and impressive career that landed her a spot in the Burlington Sports Hall of Fame in May. She spent those years playing for Andre Lachance, former longtime manager of the Women’s National Team.

She was very versatile, Lachance said, playing all positions during her time with the team, including pitching, outfield, third base, second base and first base.

“[She’s] the type of player that you cannot remove from the field, you have full confidence,” Lachance said. “You know she’s always going to compete in key moments, and I was just fortunate to have her for those 15 years.”

Her successes on the diamond are many - highlighted, she said, by a run in Korea in 2016 going to the gold medal game, and a bronze medal finish over the U.S. in 2018. She’s one of the most decorated athletes in Baseball Canada history, with six WBSC Women’s Baseball World Cup medals, and a silver medal in the 2015 Pan Am Games.

Ashley Stephenson, who now coaches with the High-A Vancouver Canadians in the Blue Jays organization, first met Psota on opposing sides of the ball diamond when they were around 13 or 14 years old.

“She always wanted to win, she was always a fierce competitor,” Stephenson said. “She loved to play but she was also a really good teammate.”

The two played together on the Women’s National Team from its inception in 2004 up until 2018.

They were both close to Amanda Asay, their longtime teammate who they lost last year in a skiing accident. There’s been a lot of tough times in a uniform, Psota said, as baseball is a game of failures, but losing her was the hardest.

Their bond was evident from the beginning, Lachance said, bettering each other on and off the field.

“They connected like right away, became very, very close great friends,” he said. “And you know it makes a difference when individuals connect like that on the team, it makes the team stronger.”

After retiring Psota was a coach on the Women’s National Team last year, and Stephenson was the manager. It was a challenging summer with losing Asay, but when they got their first win as coaches they had each other, Stephenson said. After the final out, she came over and instead of the usual handshake, gave her a big hug.

Psota will return as a coach this year with the national team, alongside Patricia Landry (St-Étienne-des-Grés, Que.), Chris Begg (Uxbridge, Ont.) and manager Anthony Pluta (Victoria, B.C.). The team will head to Thunder Bay in August for the first stage of the Women’s Baseball World Cup on home soil.

Over the years, she’s been involved with the sport, she’s made connections in pretty much every province across the country.

It’s those connections, the teammates who became friends like Stephenson and Asay, that’s so memorable about her time wearing the red and white.

“I mean it's definitely if I look back on my playing career it's sort of the people you meet and the places you got to go and the connections that you've made over time [that’s made the journey so special],” she said.