A collection of 13- and 14-year-old Squamish girls won only one of five games at the Richmond Girls Softball Association tournament on the weekend. But they still made a bit of history.
The Squamish Thunder, coached by Carrie Aseltine and Mike Koronko, became the first Howe Sound Minor Ball (HSMB) team in close to 20 years to compete in a Softball 小蓝视频-sanctioned event. Despite coming up against teams that play longer seasons and have competed at many tourneys, the Thunder held its own 鈥� and even won its final game in round-robin play on Saturday (May 31).
Until the late 1980s, HSMB enjoyed strong participation in baseball and fastpitch softball, regularly sending teams to tournaments and even sometimes reaching the provincials, said Carol Kostiuk, HSMB director of softball operations.
But interest in the sport waned and sometime in the 1990s, with fewer teams taking advantage of the club鈥檚 membership in Softball 小蓝视频 by going to tourneys, club officials decided it wasn鈥檛 worth the extra cost of insuring through Softball 小蓝视频 They started purchasing insurance privately and playing almost exclusively in Squamish, Kostiuk said.
In the past couple of years, though, HSMB officials have 鈥渂een tossing around鈥� the idea of re-upping with Softball B.C, Kostiuk said. The impetus finally came from Aseltine, a former Simon Fraser University fastpitch player who still plays on a competitive women鈥檚 team, the Kaos.
鈥淣ow that Carrie鈥檚 really into it, she鈥檚 all over it,鈥� Kostiuk said. 鈥淪he took the bull by the horns and got all the information and got it organized.鈥�
Going to more tournaments is just part of the club鈥檚 effort to re-invigorate interest in ball, Kostiuk said. Teams on the baseball side are going to more tournaments, the number and frequency of skills clinics has been increased, and there are plans to take the U12 Reign softball team to the regional tourney this month, Kostiuk said. More tournament appearances are planned in 2015.
Squamish has disadvantages in competing against teams from elsewhere, she said. One is the need to share field space with soccer, meaning HSMB can鈥檛 get on the Brennan Park fields until May 1. The girls fastpitch season is short, running only through late June.
Communities where the main field space isn鈥檛 shared can start playing in late March, Kostiuk said.
Despite that, the Thunder 鈥斅爓ith girls from both the HSMB Bantam-Pee Wee (ages 14 to 17) and Squirts (12 and 13) divisions 鈥� showed they can compete and made their coach proud, Aseltine said.
鈥淚t was amazing to watch them develop as a team and as individuals, pushing themselves that little bit more each game, all while supporting each other along the way,鈥� she said. 鈥淚鈥檓 looking forward to seeing that again in a few weeks with our U12 team and in the future with the rest of our association.鈥�
The team fell 20-13 to the Richmond Stealers in its first game and trailed the Richmond Lightning Bolts 14-0 before coming to life in the final inning. Squamish rallied for five runs, capped by Jordan Hicks鈥� two-run home run, before the tournament time limit ended the game at 14-5.
Against the talented, pitching-rich Penticton Power, Squamish jumped to an early 3-0 lead thanks in part to solid pitching from Teaghan Smith. In the first inning, shortstop Kaelee Hall snagged a dipping line drive off the bat of a Penticton player and caught the runner off first for a double play.
Penticton then rallied to take the lead but Squamish kept it close, thanks in part to back-to-back, third-inning triples by Hall and Teresa Donovan. The Power, though, held on for a 12-8 win.
Squamish rallied for five runs in the final inning of their final round-robin game against the Richmond Super Stallions to take a 14-10 lead. In the bottom half, Richmond pushed across three runs and had the tying run at third. Hicks, the Squamish pitcher, induced the Stallions hitter to ground out to second baseman Gemma Bexton for the final out, securing a 14-13 win.
The Thunder came up against the Power again in the elimination round on Sunday (June 1) and this time Penticton won 15-0.
Squamish finished round-robin play in ninth place out of 12 teams in its division. Opposing coaches twice named Hicks as Squamish鈥檚 player of the game during round-robin play, with Hall and Bexton grabbing the other two MVP awards.
Other members of the team were Janaya Dosanjh, Kylie Wittow, Kirsten Koronko, Samantha Lum, Zoe Freitag, Hannah MacRae, Linnea Burke and Jenna McMillan.
