Three Langley teams finished in the top nine at the Softball BC U12C Regional Championships held at Noel Booth park in Langley on the weekend.
The North Langley Eclipse were third in the Blue pool, the Langley Purple Panthers were second in the Red pool and the Langley Flaming Prune Warriors were first in the White pool.
For the Sunday afternoon finals, teams were sorted into three categories based on their standings, with the Blue pool for top-ranked teams, Red for those in the middle and White as a “just-for-fun” category, said Jeff Clegg, the president of the Langley Fastball Association, which hosted the event in conjunction with North Langley Softball.
“We want to keep the girls playing,” Clegg said.
It took about 40 volunteers to coordinate the 20 teams who attended, totaling over 250 players, plus coaches and parents, from Langley, Surrey, Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Ridge Meadows and Mission.
“It’s a lot of volunteers and we lean more on some than others,” Clegg said.
North Langley Softball president Trevor Moreno called the sanctioned Softball B.C. event a “stepping stone” for many players to older age categories.
“For many of these players in this classification, this is probably their only tournament that they’re probably going to do this season,” Moreno said. “Our hope is that we’re going to make this as fun as possible.”
“This is all about having fun, and basically wrapping up their season (so) hopefully they’ll come back and play this game of fast pitch next year again.”
Final results:
Blue Pool
1st-North Surrey Sliders
2nd-Fleetwood Baconators
3rd- North Langley Eclipse
Red Pool
1st-Abbotsford Wildcats
2nd- Langley Purple Panthers
3rd- Mission Chaos
White Pool
1st-Langley Flaming Prune Warriors
2nd-Chilliwack Pythons
3rd-Cloverdale Rebels
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