The young ladies of summer are already laying claim to their own field of dreams.
A trio of Innisfail teams made the town proud by reaching three out of the five finals at the 6th Annual Innisfail Girls Softball Tournament that was played in town at the local ball diamonds from June 20 to 22.
Two of them won their championship games. A third played their hearts out in spite of a title game loss. And a fourth area team from Elnora laid claim to a title.
The young ladies played magnificently from start to finish despite the initial threat of rain cancelling their big show.
“We just about got rained out. We had rain Friday night (June 20) and into Saturday morning that came close to having the tournament being called,” said Rick Blais, tournament organizer. “But it quit at around 9:30 a.m. on Saturday morning and we were able to play.”
The annual tournament featured hundreds of young female ball players from 35 teams, most of them from across Central Alberta – including those from Innisfail, Olds, Lacombe, Red Deer, Lacombe, Trochu, Three Hills, Sundre and Sylvan Lake. There were also teams from St. Paul and Elkford, B.C., the latter making the tournament for the fifth time.
“We are the biggest tournament for girls in Central Alberta,” said Blais.
Competition for the players, who ranged in age from eight to 18, was broken into five divisions – mites, squirts, peewee, bantam and midget.
Every team was guaranteed to play at least four games, with each lasting up to seven innings. The teams with the best record in each division then had the opportunity to play up to two more games, including the five big championship games. Innisfail teams wound up in three of the final title matches.
The Innisfail Red Mites won their title game against Trochu by a score of 9 – 7.
“They are a fantastic group of girls. They tried their best and they listened to everything we tried to give them because most of them had never played ball before,” said Kelly Bratrud, coach of the Red Mites. “We had to take baby steps to learn the basics like how to throw and how to bat. They learned a lot of stuff in a short period of time. It really wasn't about winning or losing. It was more about having fun.”
Meanwhile, the Innisfail bantam team claimed its division title with a 6 – 3 win over Delburne. In midget play, Lacombe won the championship with a 15 – 8 victory over Innisfail. It was the first-ever midget competition in the tourney's six-year history.
The Elnora team grabbed some big diamond glory in the squirts division by defeating Olds 9 – 4 in the championship game and Elkford beat Olds in the close peewee title game by a margin of 6 – 5.
“It was a really good showing by our teams. Our program has really grown over the last few years and we've developed some good players with good coaching,” said Blais, adding the tourney was also a fundraiser to help cover the cost of sending kids and volunteers to tournaments and provincial championships. “We could not have had such a successful tournament without our great volunteers and our tournament committee who worked long hard hours to ensure its success.”
