The East Kootenay Xtreme women’s fastball team hosted a four-team tournament over the weekend and ended up coming in first place.
Playing at the Kinsmen Quad Ball fields, the competitive women’s tournament featured the Xtreme, the Elkford Glory Daze, an Okanagan-based team called ‘LNG Dreams’ and another Cranbrook team playing under the name ‘Cranbrook Regulars’.
The two local teams kicked off the tournament against each other and tied 6-6 on Saturday morning. LNG Dreams then beat Elkford 10-8, while the Xtreme won their second game 7-3 over Elkord. The ‘Regulars’ then pulled off the largest victory of the weekend, defeating LNG Dreams 19-2. They followed it up with a 12-5 win over Glory Days, before the Xtreme beat LNG 11-8.
Both finishing the round robin with 2-0-1 records, the Cranbrook teams had to earn their way into the championship game in semi-final matches. Eliminating their visitors on Saturday morning, the Xtreme and ‘Regulars’ had a rematch to put a wrap on the weekend. While both teams were visibly tired from a full weekend of fastball, they played to a competitive, back-and-forth game that was eventually won by the Xtreme.
The Xtreme had previously placed well at two larger away tournaments earlier in the summer, coming in third place in Sicamous and winning the Calgary Women’s Fastball Association Classic championship.
According to the league president of the East Kootenay Women’s Softball league and general manager of the Xtreme, Jordan Foreman, the home tournament was an enormous success.
“Nearly all the games were close and competitive which was nice to see,” Foreman said. “All the games had exciting plays, good pitching and some really nice hits. Our second team really impressed us as well, a bunch of the league girls just came together and put a squad in and actually played amazing, they put up a great fight against the Xtreme.”
The final home games of the year for the Xtreme were well attended, with plenty of family, friends and fans taking in all the action over the weekend. Witnessing the crowds were the highlight of the entire weekend for Foreman.
“The bleachers were packed for every single one of our games and everyone was cheering loudly for both the teams playing, it was actually amazing to see how much everyone was just there enjoying the game of fastball,” he said. “The community support really was outstanding, we didn’t charge an entry fee to the teams that entered so the fact that sponsors and fans stepped up and helped out to make sure the weekend happened was so great to see and really meant a lot to the ladies and we can’t thank them enough.
“We also wanted to send a huge thank you to the Bandits Organization and Elkford Minor Ball for allowing us to use their equipment for the fields.”
The Xtreme will close their season following the B.C. Provincial Senior Championship at the end of the month in Richmond.
