By: Melissa Verge
From her first breath of life, one of the best centre fielders Team Canada has ever known was a part of sports.
She had yet to make her name, Sena Catterall, known as the most valuable player on the Women’s National Team, but “Sena” was already spoken by many sports fans.
That’s because her mom, Armenia Teixeira, named Sena after her favourite Formula One race car driver, Aryton Senna.
Twenty three years later, the Women’s National Team 2024 MVP and 2023 Ashley Stephenson Award winner has made her own name for herself in the sports world. Catterall is taking the baseball field for Canada and making the perceived impossible, possible.
She’s wowed not just fans, but management and players who witness her incredible feats of athleticism first hand, most notably at last summer's World Cup in Thunder Bay.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen male or female, a better all around baseball player,” said Women’s National Team Manager Anthony Pluta. “She makes plays that I don't think are possible, and then you turn around and she's catching the ball,” he said.
An asset for her team in centre field, a threat on the basepaths and when she steps up to the plate. She hit .455/.625/.727 with eight runs in four games in the 2023 group phase of the World Cup. In the 2024 World Cup in Thunder Bay, she hit .500 with 10 runs and nine hits in 18 at bats.
Her teammate, Mia Valcke, and Team Canada shortstop was asked to choose one word to describe Catterall.
“Beast,” Valcke replies. “She just has a beast mentality.”
Despite her success, things weren’t always easy for Catterall growing up playing baseball as the lone girl on most of her club teams.
Her mom,Armenia Teixeira, watched Catterall deal with demeaning comments from the opposition's coaches on many occasions, yet still, she persevered.
She would hear them say to the boy pitcher “listen, you can get her, she’s a girl,” she recalls.
“It’s impossible for them to, like, come to an understanding that girls can actually be possibly as good as they are,” she said.
Now as a proud member of Canada’s team, the challenges Catterall faces as a woman in baseball aren’t about comments from other people.
It’s now that she’s reached this point, where can she go from here?
She hopes they can create more equal opportunities for women in baseball. Internationally, it’s been stagnant, she said, and she would like to see more teams involved in the World Cup, and create a more competitive tournament.
“It would be nicer to see some growth at the national and international level,” she said.
Internationally, the 2024 World Cup in Thunder Bay last year almost didn’t occur, after applications for $300,000 in funding from the federal government in 2023 and 2024 were initially declined. It was thanks to a $300,000 contribution from Baseball Canada that ensured the tournament was still able to take place in Thunder Bay.
It was surprising for her to see that, Catterall said, because of the number of women who are continuing to pick up and play the sport. However, it’s necessary for women’s baseball to be backed financially so those women can continue to play and have these opportunities, she said.
“If we don't invest in women's sports then it's understandable that there's nowhere to host it, because maybe it doesn't draw as many crowds and stuff like that,” Catterall said.
If the tournament hadn’t moved forward, the world would have missed out on Catterall’s multiple highlight reel catches at the World Cup. Canada left with a bronze medal in 2024, a team effort but one that she played a vital part of.
Teammate Zoe Hicks was shocked as a ball that could’ve, should’ve dropped was snagged before hitting the ground by a layed out Catterall who stole a hit away from the opposition July 30th in their game vs. the United States.
“I’m at third base and I’m like ‘How did she do that?’” Hicks said. “I’m literally watching it in real time [and] I’m like ‘What is going on?’”
It’s not the first time that her performance has wowed Hicks. Earlier though, it was from the other side of the diamond.
The two faced off against each other at Nationals in 2019, Hicks with Team Manitoba, Catterall with Team Quebec.
As an opposing player, she made a threatening impression, this time, on the basepaths. She scored from second base on a ground ball to short, Hicks still recalls six years after the fact.
“I was like dang, that girls fast,” Hicks said. “Like, ‘who is that?’”
The talented athlete has spent much of her baseball career wowing everyone who watches her play, from teammates, to the opposition, to coaches and management.
However, she’s not done yet.
She has another goal for when she takes the field for Canada again at the next Women’s Baseball World Cup.
“I don’t think I’ll be satisfied until I have a gold medal around my neck,” Catterall said.
