INNISFAIL – The town’s gifted U15 girls softball team headed west this week to challenge for the ultimate prize.
Fresh off their big divisional playdown victory in Lethbridge on July 8 and 9, the Innisfail U15 Hawks squad earned a ticket to represent Alberta at the Canadian Junior Little League National Championship tournament that begins July 25 in Victoria, B.C.
Last year the local U15 girls squad claimed a bronze medal but this year they want more, as it would give them the chance to punch an ever bigger ticket to play as Team Canada at the Little League Softball World Series in Kirkland, Washington.
The World Series games are scheduled for July 30 to Aug. 5.
“I feel like we're more prepared. I would say we're a stronger team than we were as a whole last year,” said Jay Steeves, who coaches the team with Ray Bergeron. “We go into this national tournament with more depth in our pitching. I think our understanding of how to create offence when we're up against a really good pitcher will carry us a long ways.”
The Hawks earned a national championship berth with a powerful performance in Lethbridge during the three-team round-robin divisional playdowns.
The Innisfail squad won both of their round-robin games against Calgary YYC Voltage and Lethbridge Heat in convincing fashion, with each ending after four innings through the mercy rule.
The Hawks then moved into the final on July 9 with Lethbridge taking an early lead.
But it did not last.
“The (Innisfail) girls quickly put it together and took control of the game; continuing to pile up runs while shutting down the Heat the rest of the way,” said Bergeron, noting the game ended after five innings with a score of 14-2.
The win gave the Hawks and the Innisfail Minor Ball Association their first ever Junior Little League Alberta Championship.
Steeves said the Hawks, which is a B level team, was playing the Little League divisional playdowns to be eligible for a national championship.
Little League is a separate and relatively new American model governing body for young provincial ball players who have traditionally played under Softball Alberta guidelines.
The U15 Innisfail Hawks softball girls play both models and competed last weekend in Camrose to represent Zone 4 at Softball Alberta’s B level provincial championships. There are no nationals at this level for the girls to go if they had won provincials.
“As a softball team competing in the province of Alberta, we're obviously always on the path towards provincials,” said Steeves. “But a new opportunity had shown itself here in the last couple of years to compete in a different path towards a different nationals for a Little League Canada championship.”
The U15 Innisfail Hawks squad is going to Victoria as a 12-member team with five second-year players and seven others playing in their first season.
“The girls have really taken to some new ideas this year in terms of learning how to put the ball in play with bunting and learning how to run the bases really well and come up with new strategies to try and create some offence,” said Steeves. “The girls just love the game. They're students of the game, for sure.”
“Everything we put in front of them in terms of challenge and learning some of the strategy, they've really eaten up and embraced it,” he added. “They're quite enjoying learning some of those strategy pieces for the game of softball.”
In the meantime, everyone affiliated with the Hawks squad has been busy fundraising to ensure their girls of summer get to Victoria and play their best in comfort without any financial worries.
“Little League helps us with our players transportation but our accommodations, food and our ground transportation once we're there is not covered,” said Steeves. “We're on a mission to work with local businesses, and we've done some bottle drives and a lot of legwork to try and get our girls involved with the fundraising process to help families through this.”
