Quesnel’s under-16 girls’ softball team performed fabulously at the Spring Knockout Tournament in Kamloops last weekend (May 12-13).
The 10 players, their coaches and families travelled down to the meet with no expectations and came home with a gold.
“It was a pleasant surprise,” says coach Debbie Telford of the team’s win.
“It was just a group of girls thrown together for this tournament.”
They played against six other teams from B.C. in their division, finishing with a record of 5-1.
In the four-game round robin, the Quesnel team notched victories against Abbotsford, Kelowna and North Langley, with a lone loss to the local Kamloops girls.
They beat Abbotsford in the semi-finals and were able to enact revenge on Kamloops with a 10-5 vanquishing in the gold-medal game.
Amelia Musselman showed terrific poise as the winning pitcher, and Telford says the girls’ bats were unstoppable all tournament.
They weren’t showing any seasonal rust.
“We have winter ball that starts in January,” says Telford.
“That helps us get a good jump [on the summer season].”
One night a week, the girls were going to the indoor soccer facility to work on different facets of their game.
Telford is pleased but says they still have room for improvement.
“It’s the beginning of the year, so we still need to work on routine plays, cut-offs, hot-box plays and some out-of-the-box things.”
The team is hoping to continue its success when it travels to Vernon in two weeks.
