The Penticton Ice Girls U16 team picked up one of their best finishes in their association history at softball provincials last weekend.
After going undefeated in the preliminary rounds, the team caught some tough breaks and couldn’t move on to win a medal, finishing in fifth place.
“It was such an honour to be involved with these girls. Everyone of them started at the house league and every one of them improved so dramatically,” said coach Jeff Korven. “For these girls to turn that corner and become rep players and end up fifth best in the province is a huge accomplishment.”
Playing against the top 16 teams from each district in the province the Ice came out swinging in their first four round-robin games going undefeated and seeded second.
They easily turned aside the Cloverdale Fury 8-0 in the preliminary round but facing them first in the playoffs they lost by just one run 8-7. The Ice bounced back to defeat the South Delta invaders 10-0.
“A couple of great games by all the players, especially our pitching staff. Payton Joyce earned the shutout in the game,” said Korven.
Joyce led the team into their third game in the same day facing the Ridge Meadow Rage. Tied after six innings, Korven said the Rage managed to score one in the top of the seventh and the team couldn’t rebound, knocking the Ice out of contention for a medal.
“It was just a really great weekend for the team as a whole. We had a couple players that were just studs at the plate including Tessi Brandt and Tallon Stephenson. Brandt hit two homeruns that cleared the fence by a mile and hit about four of them off the fence over the weekend games,” said Korven, who also thanked coaching staff Mark Verhaeghe and Rebecca Livsey for their efforts this season. “All of the players and this team had some of the best performances I have seen from this age group in our association in a long time.”
The Cloverdale Fury 1 went on to win the gold medal defeating the Coquitlam Classics. Ridge Meadow Rage took the bronze.
