NORMAN — For Deiten Lachance, moving over 3,000 kilometers (nearly 2,000 miles) away from his home of Sherbrooke, Quebec, where 86% of residents speak French to the Blackland Prairie of Central Texas was a culture shock to say the least.
Then-McLennan Community College (Waco, Texas) baseball coach Tyler Johnson and his staff spotted Lachance, a right-handed power hitting catcher for the Canadian Junior National Team, at a tournament in Atlanta. Lachance took big swings and had a large frame at over six feet but held only a few junior college offers.
Johnson and his staff felt there was something inside Lachance they could tap into. They felt he had a chance to be special.
That is, if they could help him adjust to a completely different lifestyle.
“When I came there, I was barely talking English, I didn’t understand nothing at all,” said Lachance, now a junior at Oklahoma. “It was terrible. Class and baseball was too much at a time. I wanted to quit after a month there.”
Standing on the Kimrey Family Stadium turf Thursday, dripping with sweat in the 88-degree summer, where the “feels like” temperature was 22 degrees warmer than the average temperature on June 4 back home in Sherbrooke, Lachance is glad he stuck it out.
Lachance, who speaks great English now, leads the Sooners in home runs (14), RBIs (58) and OPS (1.030) as they head on the road to face Kansas in the Super Regional round of the NCAA Tournament this week, beginning on Saturday. Lachance enters supers as one of the hottest hitters in America, homering nine times in his last 14 games.
“I really took him under my wing (at McLennan) and tried to give him the stability of feeling comfortable so he could grow and just do his thing,” said Tyler Johnson, the son of OU coach Skip Johnson. “Nothing really special that we did, just wanted him to be comfortable and feel at home and obviously seeing him go on and do this stuff makes all of us super happy.”
When Lachance stepped foot on McLennan’s campus, he understood what some of his coaches, professors and teammates were saying at times due to his travels with Team Canada over the years. But he couldn’t speak their language to save his life.
So Johnson, with a heads up to the professor that his new student couldn’t speak English, enrolled Lachance into a speech class during the first semester of his freshman year where he was forced to speak the language and give speeches on a regular basis.
Lachance, while feeling a ton of self-doubt at times about his ability to fit in, never complained. He also never missed a game in two years at McLennan.
“I was like, ‘Here you go get used to it,’ and he handled it well, he did a good job,” Johnson said. “It was just fun seeing him grow, learn more words and learn how to communicate with phrases. His excitement always shows up, you know what he’s feeling and how much fun he’s having because of how he plays and his body language.
“What really separated him from a lot of guys from the get-go was how much fun he would have doing whatever we were doing on a baseball field, whether it was something that was extremely hard and difficult, or it was hot outside and we were in our three- or four-hour practice, or catching bullpens or in the weight room. The guy was just having so much fun.”
From day one, Johnson knew he had a chance to one day play in a league like the SEC and possibly go pro. During the fall of Lachance’s freshman year, McLennan traveled to Norman to scrimmage the Sooners and the young French Canadian was catching up to and crushing balls off elite arms. He already has the strength to do it, Johnson thought to himself back then.
For Lachance to take the next step and put everything together, he was going to have to learn how to consistently handle pitching.
Lachance learned quickly, hitting .335 as a freshman, while totaling 14 doubles, 10 home runs and 69 RBIs and earning First-Team All-Conference honors. He was selected as an NJCAA Second-Team All-American following his sophomore season after playing in 66 games and recording a .380 batting average and .704 slugging percentage with 65 runs, 21 home runs and 104 RBIs.
Similarly to his time in junior college, Lachance had a slow start to his first season at OU this spring:
First 31 games (110 at-bats): 0 home runs.
Last 26 games (104 at-bats): 14 home runs.
“I told the staff there at Oklahoma,” Johnson said, “I was like, ‘as soon as he hits his first one, he’s going to hit a lot.’”
Lachance has homered 10 times in the last month, which includes a grand slam to help the Sooners claw back to beat Georgia Tech in the regional round. He was named the Atlanta Regional’s Most Outstanding Player.
“I was looking for myself for the first 31 games. I couldn’t hit a homer,” Lachance said. “It was hard for me, I’ve always been the power guy. But I took some time off and did a refresh in the middle of the season and things started clicking. I knew when I hit one, things were going to start rolling.”
Things are more than rolling for Lachance and the Sooners’ offense.
Mostly known for its small-ball, chaotic style of offense, OU homered 11 times last weekend. In addition to Lachance, Kyle Branch, Dasan Harris, Camden Johnson and Jaxon Willits are all heating up at the right time.
The Sooners scored 38 runs on 45 hits across the final three games of the regional.
“The guys woke up at the right moment,” Lachance said. “Our pitchers definitely have less pressure now, because they know we’re going to score 10 (runs per) game.”
It’s been quite the journey for Lachance the past three years. He’s two wins away from playing in the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, an event he used to watch from his French-Canadian hometown.
From luckily spotting him at a tournament to helping him learn a new language, it’s been a joy for Johnson to watch his former pupil help his father’s team go on a run and thrive on the biggest stage in the sport.
“For Deiten to do this, honestly I looked at him like my little brother in a sense,” Johnson said. “Obviously being a long way from home, being in a different country, not being able to speak the language, I took him under my wing.”
Lachance added: “Skip’s son, coach Johnson, gave me an opportunity. These three years have been the best three years of my life with the Johnson family.”
Colton Sulley covers the Oklahoma Sooners for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Colton? He can be reached at csulley@oklahoman.com or on X/Twitter at @colton_sulley. Support Colton’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing adigital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
OU at Kansas
Best-of-three NCAA Super Regional at Hoglund Ballpark in Lawrence, Kansas:
Game 1: 5 p.m. Saturday, June 6 (ESPN2)
Game 2: 5 p.m. Sunday, June 7 (TBD)
Game 3 (if necessary): TBD Monday, June 8 (TBD)
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Deiten Lachance found his power on OU baseball run to super regional
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