The Moose Jaw U15 A Ice went into the weekend looking to test themselves and maybe pick up a win or two in the Moose Jaw and District Minor Girls Fastball U17 B tournament this past weekend.
When all was said and done, they ended up with a rather impressive showing throughout the event at the Optimist Park diamonds.
The Ice would reach the tournament semifinal before falling 6-2 to the Weyburn Wild, capping off a weekend that saw the Moose Jaw bats put up plenty of runs against their older opponents.
The Ice opened the tournament on Saturday morning with a 13-3 win over the Saskatoon Lasers and followed up with a 9-4 win over the West Central Ice in their second game of the day.
That put the local crew in the driver’s seat for a playoff position heading into Sunday action, and they’d make no mistake with a 17-14 victory against the Regina Royals. Their 3-0 record gave Moose Jaw first place in their pool, setting up the semifinal tilt with Weyburn.
The Moose Jaw Sliders had the best showing of three local teams in the U19 B draw and found themselves in a trio of close games along the way.
The Sliders opened with a 14-13 win over the Lafleche Blazers before dropping a 6-5 decision to the South East SuperNovas in their other round robin game. Their 1-1 record was good enough to land a spot in the quarter-final, where they’d end up in another barnburner with Lafleche before eventually falling 6-5.
The Moose Jaw Thunder and Moose Jaw Nitro were also in action, with the Thunder taking a 16-9 win over the Nitro in their round robin match before falling 18-0 to the Battlefords Bandits and dropping an 8-0 decision to the East Central Riverdogs.
The Nitro were unable to find the win column, falling 8-3 to the Riverdogs and 14-0 to Battlefords.
All told, a total of 21 teams took part in the event, the first tournament of the season for the local fastball league. Games scheduled for Friday evening were postponed due to the heavy rain, but organizers were able to finagle the schedule -- including taking 15 minutes off the game time allotment -- in order to get things in.
