OMAHA, Neb. -- One of the toughest ballplayers at the Men's College World Series loves cats. Deiten Lachance, the strapping 6-foot-5, 231-pound Canadian catcher for Oklahoma, loves all animals, really, and had to come to terms with the fact that people in rural parts of America like to hunt.
The name of his junior college coach's dog, whom Lachance doted over, should have been the first hint: Trigger. Shortly after arriving in the U.S. to play baseball at McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas, in 2023, Lachance attended a team dinner at coach Tyler Johnson's house. One of the first things Lachance noticed were the deer heads mounted on the wall, and he asked Johnson if he killed them, and why.
"This is going to sound kind of weird, I guess," Johnson said, "but I picture [Lachance] like that scene in the old 'Snow White' where she's standing in the forest and all the birds and animals walk up to her and just land on her. Like, that's him.
"He's a giant kid, but he's always happy. He had so much joy about what he was doing."
No animals were harmed in Oklahoma's 9-0 rout of No. 7 Alabama on Saturday at the MCWS, but Lachance's left ankle was. He rolled it as his heel landed awkwardly on second base in the first inning, but he insisted on staying in the game. Five innings later, Lachance crushed a 409-foot two-run homer to left field, slowly limping around the bases. He brushed it off after the game, insisting he was "100%."
As the Sooners practiced Sunday, Lachance walked around gingerly as he took a seat in the dugout. But he left no doubts about his playing status for Monday, when Oklahoma faces No. 3 Georgia in a winner's bracket game at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha (7 p.m. ET on ESPN).
"Nothing could take me off the field," he said.
That attitude, along with his unique, constantly upbeat personality, is why OU coach Skip Johnson calls Lachance an "energy-giver." He has hit 12 of his 16 home runs since the beginning of May, as the upstart Sooners knocked off No. 2 national seed Georgia Tech in the Atlanta Regional, then beat No. 15 Kansas in the Lawrence Super Regional.
He has kept the team loose with his joyful, and sometimes unfiltered, view of baseball. In the news conference after Saturday's win, Lachance was so revved up over freshman pitcher Cord Rager's performance that he said with Rager on the mound, the Sooners have a chance to beat anybody, including the New York Yankees.
"Easy," his skipper, seated next to him, said with a laugh.
Lachance had no regrets.
"Being able to play good and in front of a big crowd like that," he said Sunday, "I mean, it makes you just dream at night. Literally, I was in my bed last night [thinking], 'Wow, that's what MLB players feel like every day.'
"I'm excited for the next game. I'm excited for every game."
The Sooners found Lachance through Tyler Johnson -- Skip Johnson's son. It was the first time he had ever recommended a player to his father.
Christian Reyes, one of Tyler's recruiters at McLennan, spotted Lachance at a summer Perfect Game tournament in Atlanta in 2022. Lachance was on a team with some of the top talent in Montreal. He grew up in Sherbrooke, a southern Quebec city surrounded by mountains and lakes, in a place where boys played hockey, not baseball. But his dad, Alain, loved the sport, and sparked an interest in him.
Recruiting Lachance was a challenge for Tyler Johnson because McLennan could not bring him on a recruiting trip to see the Waco, Texas, campus, but more importantly because Lachance didn't speak English.
Unable to communicate with the coaches, Lachance often replied by politely saying, "Yes." But Alain Lachance spoke decent English, Tyler said, which made it a little easier during the scholarship offer.
"The biggest thing was really just telling Deiten and his family, 'Y'all don't have to pay anything for him to come to school,'" Tyler said. "I was like, zero, zero dollars.
"They're like, 'Oh, OK. That works.'"
In the first practices, Tyler Johnson found himself talking into Google Translate on his phone and showing the French translation to Lachance. Johnson put him in a speech class freshman year, and Lachance listened to country music -- particularly Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen -- then looked up the songs online to understand what they meant.
He picked up the language quickly, then taught his teammates some French phrases.
The assimilation into college baseball went smoothly, and he hit .335 with 10 home runs and 69 RBIs that first season. Lachance belted 21 home runs as a sophomore with 104 RBIs.
Johnson said having a bigger-bodied catcher has advantages. Lachance is a larger target, and he doesn't have to move as much to block pitches. He compared Lachance's arm and body type to that of Kansas City's Salvador Perez, a nine-time All-Star. They share another notable quality, Johnson said.
Both are almost always smiling.
"He never has a bad day on the baseball field," Johnson said of Lachance. "He's obviously talented, but more so one of those guys that just love to play baseball. And honestly, when we got him, it was even better than we thought."
Trevor Johnson flew to Omaha, Nebraska, to watch Lachance play Saturday, and Lachance's parents were there, too. It was the first time he had seen his mom in six months, one of the drawbacks of chasing his dream in a different country. He also misses his sister, who has to work back home, and of course, he misses his cats.
But the Sooners keep winning, and Lachance is having the time of his life. His home run Saturday, which blew the game open, surely will be one of the iconic moments of the 2026 MCWS. Lachance said he didn't realize he was even limping as he rounded the bases, and his gait seemed as if it were in slow motion.
"I just took my time," he said. "There's no timing around the bases, and I enjoyed the moment."
