Hot dogs, sunscreen and another beautiful day marked the end of the first tournament the Prince George Minor Girls Softball Association hosted in a couple of seasons.
The two-day Squirt tournament began Saturday with seven teams, five from Prince George and two from Quesnel battling it out on the Freeman Field diamonds. A week earlier the two Quesnel teams finished 1-2 at their own tournament but this time they were left to fight for the bronze as a pair of Prince George teams, Printwerx and Westcana Electric, played off Sunday for the gold.
Mark Wendling, president of the PGMGSA, said the support for the league has been outstanding this year, which allowed them to host the tournament for the squirts, girls between nine and 12.
"Our numbers league-wide are up eight per cent this year," said Wendling. "We keep telling the girls to bring a friend out next year so we can keep growing the league to eventually have enough players for the women's fastball league."
Players from the girls peewee and bantam teams were also out on the weekend working as umpire crews or doing field maintenance.
In the gold medal game, Westcana Electric received two stellar innings of pitching from Mandy Pratt to hand Printwerx their first loss of the weekend, 18-9 in four innings. In squirt ball if one team has a lead of more than seven runs after the fourth inning the game is declared final.
Pratt stymied the Printwerx batters in the final two innings, giving up just two runs.
Offensively Camryn Scully led Westcana with four runs scored, while earning a RBI with a double that saw the ball sneak through the hole between second base and shortstop and out to centre field in the top of the fourth inning.
Westcana led 8-7 after two innings and added five more runs in both the third and fourth innings.
The bronze medal was won by the Quesnel Elks in an extra inning (6) over the Quesnel Babcon.
Westcana posted a 6-1 overall record while Printwerx was 5-1 with their only loss coming in the final. Westcana had to play three games Sunday while Printwerx suited up for two.
Injuries piled up for both teams over the course of the four-inning final, notably Thea Palmer of Printwerx played the game with a heavily taped ankle while her teammate Sydney Casey suffered an injured elbow when slid into home plate on an attempted steal and became tangled up with the catcher.
The injuries to Palmer and Casey are significant because both girls were selected to the Prince George all-star team that heads down to Trail on Thursday to take part in the 10-team provincial tournament. Jess Hudson and Walter Colk will guide the girls as field managers.
Other players from Printwerx (Hudson is the coach) going to Trail include Alysha Madsen and Autumn Nicolas. Westcana players selected for the all-star team are Scully, Shelby Betker, Mishayla Christensen, Pratt and Cerina Nikic.
"We just want to go down there, put on a good show and let the teams in Kamloops, Vernon, Kelowna and the Lower Mainland know that there's good softball in the north," said Hudson. "The girls have been training four or five days a week to get ready."
Other members of Westcana are Tessa Sturgeon, Shayla Ghostkeeper, Katie Kilburn and Haley Finn, while the remaining members of Printwerx are Cassidy Colle, Darion Tourand, Kayla Toftlin, Breanna Weselowski, Kate Carter and Brytney Skytenile.
The PGMGSA plays C-level ball during league play and that's what the provincial championship will be for the squirts, but the peewee R.H. Jones Panthers and bantam Prince George Thunderbirds are both headed to the B-level provincial tournaments - the Panthers play in Abbotsford, July 4-7, while the T-birds travel to Port Alberni, July 18-21.
