The Moose Jaw Ice saw their run at the Softball Canada U17 national championship come to an end on Saturday night with a loss in their second game of the medal round.
Facing the B.C. champion Surrey Storm, the Ice kept things close early but couldn’t keep the momentum going, dropping an 8-1 decision in five innings.
It was still a solid showing for the local crew in Saskatoon, as they finished in the top eight out of 24 of the best U17 girls fastball teams in Canada.
That included a 3-2 record in the round robin, where they took a 4-3 win over Manitoba’s Central Energy, fell 5-4 to the P.E.I. Whitecaps, defeated the Calgary Kaizen Black 7-0 and Cloverdale, B.C. Fury 8-7 before dropping a 6-4 decision to the Whitby, Ont. Eagles in their final round robin game.
The Ice thought they were off to the consolation round on Friday night, but the tiebreakers broke their way and saw them land in the medal round instead.
There, Moose Jaw won their first contest 7-6 over Team Quebec before running into the Storm.
That contest saw a one-run game through the first three innings, with Surrey holding a 2-1 edge thanks to an Ice run in the top of the third inning.
Aubrey Clarke and Macy Litzenberger hit back-to-back one-out singles to get things started and Cadence Colborn would force an error at short to bring home Clarke with their lone run
That was the end of the good news for Moose Jaw, though, as Surrey put up three runs in the fourth to lead 5-1 and invoked the seven-run mercy rule with three more runs in the fifth.
The Ice had six hits in the game, with Litzenberger going 2-for-3 as the only player with more than one hit.
While Moose Jaw had been clean in the field much of the tournament, errors played a role in the outcome on Saturday.
Hope Mcleod got the start for the Ice and allowed five runs on eight hits over 3 ⅔ innings of work, with only two of those runs earned. Ava Unser finished things off, allowing three runs, two earned on three hits and a pair of walks while getting two outs in the fifth.
