After a one-year absence, Roll 2 is back on top.
The mixed slo-pitch team won the Open division at the National Softball Association Canada Co-ed Canadian championship last week in Leduc, Alta.
There were 75 teams in attendance.
It was the team’s fourth title in the past five years, a string that was interrupted when they skipped nationals last year as the date conflicted with the spreading of the ashes of a teammate who had passed away.
“Other than the first time we won, this was probably the most joyful because of the route we had all year,” said the team’s manager Jason Wilson.
“It just felt like (all the work) had paid off.”
Nationals were held July 27 to 31.
Roll 2, made up of players primarily from Langley, went 4-0 to win their pool at nationals.
They defeated Xtreme Kaos 21-11 in the opening round of the playoffs, before edging one of their league rivals, the BC Legends, 11-9 in the quarter-finals.
Up against Northside, an Edmonton-area team, Roll 2 was one out away from advancing straight to the championship series.
But Northside scored the tying run on a throwing error and then hit a walk-off home run to win 16-13.
Faced with some adversity of having to go to the backdoor semifinals, Roll 2 responded by edging the Centaurs 27-26 to earn another crack at Northside, this time in a best-of-three series.
Roll 2 won 24-17 and 29-25 to claim the championship.
Out of the 16 players and three coaches on the roster, nine were new.
“With this year being a huge turnover (in the roster) we had a pretty tough season,” Wilson said.
“We didn’t really have much luck throughout the year.
“We had a couple of tough losses but we went into (nationals) forgetting about everything, focusing on the tournament.
The team went 9-1 at nationals and outscored the competition by a combined 95 runs, 271-176.
“Everybody all weekend focused on the team game and manufactured runs when we had to. We did it together,” he said.
While there were no tournament all-star awards handed out, Wilson credited Colin Newton and Jamie Noga for their efforts.
“I think he only got out three times in the whole tournament,” he said about Newton.
“And (Jamie) is so fast, it is a game changer. She probably played one of her best tournaments of the year.”
