Nearly every St. Albert Angels team saw fastball action over the weekend as they split an array of games between Meadowview Diamonds in St. Albert and the Meridian Sports Park in Stony Plain.
The A teams stayed at home in St. Albert while the B teams took to Stony Plain. They played through smoke from the B.C. wildfires and faced rain delays in St. Albert, but were able to battle through the conditions to complete the weekend's games.
The U19s A team cruised through the weekend as they picked up four wins in the five games they played in St. Albert. This included a pair of 5-4 and 4-1 wins over the Llyodminister Liners; a 3-1 victory over Calgary Kaizen; and a nail-biting 6-5 win over the Sherwood Park Storm. They escaped the weekend without a loss, as they played to a 5-5 tie against the Calgary Adrenaline on Saturday.
Cassie Matlock, 19UA assistant coach, said the successful weekend was the best the team has felt since the season began in mid-June.
“I think we had the best energy we’ve had the entire season,” said Matlock. “It was really good to see us hitting the ball really hard and just carried it throughout every game.
“We had some good pitching by all of our pitchers, and we were hitting the ball really well. You can’t put (the success) on any one player.”
Maeve Lavoy, U19A pitcher and centrefielder, said the team was able to look past the smoky conditions.
“It was fine, I think we handled it really well,” said Lavoy. “Our energy the entire weekend was really high. We stayed loud and kept that good energy on the bench.”
The U14A team also played at Meadowview. They faced more adversity than their U19 counterparts. The team opened the weekend with two wins over both Calgary Adrenaline red and black teams, but faced troubles in their third game.
They dropped a 7-3 decision against Calgary Kaizen on Saturday while the Calgary Adrenaline red team exacted revenge with a 13-2 score on Sunday. The final game against the Sherwood Park Storm went to extra innings, but it would be the Storm that found a way to win it, taking it with a final score of 10-7.
Adversity was the name of the game for the 14UA Angels, but they weren’t about to make any excuses. Head coach Muray Scoggins said he wasn’t too disappointed with how the weekend turned out.
“Overall we did OK,” said Scoggins. “Obviously we got caught with making some timely errors and the other teams took advantage of them, simple as that.”
He had a lot of praise for shortstop Kerris Johnson and pitcher Charley Vaughn.
“Johnson hit really well,” said Scoggins. “Vaughn pitched well. She had one bad inning over the whole weekend. That's it.”
Kerris Johnson, the shortstop for the U14A Angels, said this will be a weekend the team takes in stride.
“I think we played some good ball. At the end of the day I’m proud of how we played,” said Johnson. “We are going to come back strong. We are going to work on communication and working together as a team.
“We got a good group of girls and we’ll beat them when it counts.”
The 16UA team went 1-4 on the weekend, while the 12UA went a perfect 5-0, out-scoring their opponents 56-9 in the process.
Over in Stony Plain the B teams played out games of their own. The 16UB went 3-2, while the 12UB team dropped their only game 16-11 against the Sylvan Lake Storm.
For a complete record of every score for each group check out the Prairie League Softball website at www.gpls.ca.
