Sicamous Minor Softball has been chosen to host the U16 Bantam and U19 Midget Girls Okanagan Championship in Finlayson Park on June 20-21.
The winners of these championships will go on to represent the Okanagan at the Provincial Championships in July.
The U19 Stingers currently sit in first place in Okanagan Valley league standings with a nine-win, two-tie, two-loss record.
Recently, the Stingers competed in the Vernon Summer Classic Tournament, winning the bronze medal with a five win – one loss record.
After winning their first three games on Saturday and placing first in the A pool, Sicamous faced Langley in the first playoff game on Sunday.
Sicamous pitcher Madison Dewitt struck out 15 batters to lead the Stingers to a 5-3 win.
Strong batting from Sarah Palmer and Sarah Whitehead provided the offence.
The win put Sicamous into the semi-final against Chilliwack. Unfortunately, the Stingers could not get the bats going and despite a strong pitching effort from Julia Wilby, lost the game 5-3.
This led to the bronze medal game against Kelowna. Again, the Stingers’ bats were cold early as they fell behind 5-0 after three innings.
In the fourth inning, the bats came alive with hits from Mallory Todd, Kaitlyn Sherlock and Fallon Todd and Sicamous scored four runs, then scored three more in the fifth inning to take a 7-5 lead.
Kelowna tied the game at seven in the sixth inning which led to Madison Dewitt driving in the go ahead and winning run in the top of the seventh inning, and then striking out the side to preserve the hard-fought 8-7 win.
A very tired, injured, but proud, Sicamous team headed home with their bronze medals.
Sicamous has two more league games in Finlayson Park before the Okanagan Championship. Come out and support the girls as they play Vernon on Tuesday, June 16 at 6:30 p.m. and Enderby on Thursday, June 18 at 6:30 p.m.
-Submitted by Jake DeWitt
