The Delta Heat ‘96 began play at the Canadian Bantam girls softball championship tournament yesterday (Wednesday) in Winnipeg this week with a split of two games played.
The Heat started strong and finished stronger in their first game, allowing them to escape with a 7-5 win over the Waterloo Ghosts Wednesday morning.
Delta took a 2-0 lead after a half-inning when Kaitlin Fraser scored on a pass ball and Holly Speers came home on a Waterloo error.
They trailed 5-3 going into the seventh inning, when they sent 10 batters to the plate and scored four times for the win.
Fraser went two-for-three at the plate, scoring two runs and driving in another. Speers had three RBIs (runs batted in), also scoring once.
Later in the day against the Smitty’s Terminators, the Heat again went up 2-0 after batting in the top half of the opening inning but went on to lose 6-4.
Paige Harboard and Siara Couper scored in the first when a drive by Jennifer Linde was mishandled by the Terminators’ infield.
The Smitty’s squad shook off the slow start, and scored three times in the bottom of the first inning to take the lead, and stretched the lead with three more in the third.
Two more Terminators errors led to runs from Kennedy Bailey and Francais Olexa in the seventh inning, in a Heat rally that fell short.
Delta will play a pair of games today (Thursday) and two more Friday before the playoff round starts Saturday morning.
The Heat qualified by winning the provincial championship tournament last month, where they won all four round robin games to place first going into a double-knockout playoff.
After a pair of wins, Delta was upset 8-1 by the White Rock Renegades. Avoiding elimination with a 9-0 win over the Abbotsford Outlaws ‘95, the Heat faced the Renegades a second time for the championship. A two-out hit to centre-field by Kennedy Bailey scored Montana Turnovitsky and Lexie Brenneis for a 2-1 Delta win.
– Two local teams are at the girls under-14 (Pee Wee) national tournament in Vaughn, Ontario.
The Surrey Storm lost to the host Vaughn Vikings 4-2 Wednesday afternoon. The Storm were fourth at last month’s provincial championship tournament in Surrey.
Also competing in Vaughn are the Delta Heat ‘97, the third place team at the provincials.
