The Moose Jaw Ice might not have won the Softball Sask U15 AA provincial championship on Sunday afternoon at Optimist Park, but they still picked up one heck of a consolation prize.
With their silver medal showing at the provincial tournament, the Ice are off to the Softball Canada championship in Brandon during the Aug. 9 weekend, thanks to a showing that saw the local crew drop a single game all weekend.
Unfortunately, that game happened to be the gold medal final against the Twin City Angels, who would go on to an 8-3 victory and will be the top Saskatchewan seed at nationals.
“That was our goal from day one,” Ice coach Dale Garthus said of landing the Canadians berth. “I was just joking with the girls, winning provincials wasn’t on our goal list anyway, but going to nationals was, so we have to be happy with that.”
The Ice had reached the gold medal game thanks to an undefeated round robin record that included a 2-1 win over the Angels in their final game.
The Ice then rolled to an 8-1 win over the Lumsden Cubs in the semifinal, setting up the rematch with Twin City -- named for the combination of players from Warman and Martensville.
The difference this time was Emma Frisky, with the Angels ace and defacto best pitcher in the province making it difficult to generate any consistent offence. It wasn’t for a lack of trying, though, as a small ball strategy would see the Ice rack up 10 hits on the day.
Unfortunately for Moose Jaw, Frisky’s teammates saw to it she would be able to get into a groove early as they put up four runs and took a 4-1 lead out of the first inning.
“They’re a very good team, they got off to an early lead on us and we couldn’t battle back,” Garthus said. “With that kind of pitcher going for them, it’s pretty tough to claw back. We put the pressure on them, though, using a lot of small ball stuff and we had lots of baserunners, but we just couldn’t get the key hits at the right time.”
Blake Maltais had a 2-for-3 showing that included a triple to open the game and a pair of runs scored. Charlize Hillmer scored Moose Jaw’s other run, while Gracelyn Blanchard had a 3-for-4 game at the plate.
Avery Garthus started for the Ice and had a rare rough outing, allowing the four runs on five hits and only managing a single out in the opening inning. Kensington Demassi took over and allowed three runs on two hits over the next 2 ⅔ before Taryn Friesen finished things off, allowing a run on four hits over the final four innings.
Frisky, meanwhile, pitched the complete game and allowed three runs on 10 hits and struck out 12.
“We played them last weekend and she had 17 strikeouts, where today we were able to force them to make plays, so it was a lot better,” Garthus said.
Of course, you don’t get to the gold medal final without having a great weekend, and Garthus was especially proud of his team and what they accomplished.
“We played really well the whole time, we basically had great pitching and hitting and defence and did little things right,” he said. “Then the girls had such great energy all weekend, the girls were on a mission to get here and I was really impressed with how they competed all weekend.”
Twin City and Moose Jaw will be joined in Brandon by the bronze medalist Lumsden Cubs.
Now it’s off to Nationals and a chance to face the best Canada has to offer -- a challenge the Ice are most definitely looking forward to.
“There are obviously going to be some really good teams there, but if we play our game and do the things we can do, I think we’ll be really competitive with whoever we play,” Garthus said.
