The Angels squirt girls provincial softball team finished second at the northern provincials here on July 6-8. The Shellbrook Heat beat the Angels 17-2 in the final of the eight-team tournament. Front, from left: Ainsley Beattie, Audrey Ediger, Ceanna Fischer, Marisa Winny; middle: Hailey Burton, Tristyn Endicott, Cambree Legge, Brielle Neumeier, Dakota Wood, Emily Molberg, Mackenzie Waldner, Kendra Kidd, Kendra Giles; back: assistant coach Darby Freistadt, head coach Kelli Emmons and assistant coach Bob Clothier pose with their silver medals.
Crossroads staff
The Angels squirt softball team lost in the championship game of their northern provincial championships playoffs, held here on July 6-8, but still exceeded coaches’ expectations.
The Shellbrook Heat beat the Angels 17-2 to win the final game.
“Our goal was to make it to Sunday (and the playoffs that day) and we did,” head coach Kelli Emmons. “It was kind of a bonus getting into the gold-medal game.”
Despite only having had one game together beforehand, due to the out-of-town players, Emmons felt they “came together pretty well for the weekend.”
The Edam Blue Sox defeated the Kindersley Royals 17-14 in the bronze-medal game.
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In the final, the Heat scored five runs in the first inning, helped by a three-run triple by Kalli Fronson, then scored four runs in each of the second and third innings and three more in the top of the fourth, after which the game was declared over on the mercy rule, with the Angels down 15 runs after three innings.
The Angels’ Cambree Legge scored when Kendra Kidd grounded out in the bottom of the first to make the score 5-1 and Audrey Ediger got the Angels’ second on a third-inning single by Emily Molberg.
The Shellbrook team had “outstanding pitching,” Heat assistant coach Derek Klein said. “Our hitting was timely and we made not many errors at all. It was a great, great weekend.” Great pitching and errorless play “is the biggest thing” at the under-12 level, Klein said.
The Heat entered provincials for the first time last year, ending with a 1-4 record, he said. This year they “gelled together,” he said, crediting the girls and his fellow coaches for going 5-0 in the tournament, including three called by the mercy rule.
“That’s unheard of,” Klein said.
Six Heat players move up to peewee and four return next year, he said.
Next season for the Angels, six advance to the next age group and seven remain as squirts, Emmons said.
“We pretty much had a Saskatchewan summer for the ball tournament: really hot, really windy and a little bit of rain,” she said.
“But everything seemed to go well. The rain was done Sunday by the time we actually started the game, so that was good.”
In the semifinals, the Angels edged the Blue Sox 11-10 and the Heat beat the Royals 17-10.
Rosetown led Edam 10-2 after three and a half innings on running and hitting by several players, starting with first-inning runs by Kendra Giles of Elrose and Neumeier of Kerrobert. A single by Tristyn Endicott, also of Kerrobert, scored Kendra Kidd, and a passed ball brought home Endicott to make it 4-0.
In the bottom of the second, Zoey Pollard of the Blue Sox hit a solo home run to put them on the scoreboard.
In the top of the third, Dakota Wood scored on a throwing error and Legge singled to score Giles to give the Angels a 6-1 lead.
In the bottom of the fourth, a run-scoring double by Pollard and a two-run triple by Shylah Sittler helped the Blue Sox close the gap to 10-6.
Wood’s fifth-inning run made it 11-7 but the Blue Sox closed the game to 11-10 after six innings. Despite getting no runs in their half, the Angels played good enough defence to hold the Blue Sox to a walk and put out that runner at third for the final out.
In the round robin, Shellbrook and Edam finished with 3-0 records and in first place in the green and white pools, respectively.
The Angels and Kindersley finished the round robin with 2-1 records for second place in those respective pools.
The host team lost 10-6 to the Heat to open the tournament and then hammered the Humboldt Thunder 18-1 and the Macklin Lakers 14-5.
That loss to the Heat, on Friday, starting at 6:30 p.m., was ironically played in 34-degree weather, which, with the humidity, was said to feel like 40 degrees.
In the bottom of the fourth, home-plate umpire Brian Deck stopped the game, saying that the Angel catcher needed water. Coaches took her out and put another in her place for the rest of the game.
A similar substitution due to heat and dehydration was required in the Edam-Hudson Bay game going on at the same time.
That opening game for the Angels was called after their half of the sixth. Softball Saskatchewan provincial round-robin games have a 90-minute time limit.
The Angels had two out and the bases loaded, having received five walks in their half. An observer said that they might have won, had the game gone seven innings.
In other Friday round-robin games, the Macklin Lakers pummelled the Humboldt Thunder 18-1, Kindersley whipped the Watrous Royals 14-3 and the Blue Sox drubbed the very young Hudson Bay Lazers 20-3.
On Saturday, Hudson Bay beat Watrous 11-7, Edam squeaked by Kindersley 11-10, Shellbrook beat Humboldt 17-5, Kindersley vanquished Hudson Bay 12-7 and Edam defeated Watrous 12-3.
“We thought Rosetown did an excellent job of running the tournament,” Kindersley head coach Jason Stevens said.
Opening ceremonies included a moment of silence for local sports volunteers tragically lost in recent traffic accidents: Phyllis Cave and the Troy and Carissa Gasper family.
The Angels also conducted a raffle during the tournament, raising $600 for the proposed Gasper memorial park.
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