The Davidson Red Sox Squirt Girls’ softball team are league champions after a convincing two-game playoff sweep against the rival Saskatoon Hustlers Extreme June 24 at Glen Reeve Park in Saskatoon.
The win has earned them a berth in the provincial championships held in Regina later this summer.
Jason Shaw, head coach of the Red Sox, said the ages nine to 12 team had a fantastic showing at the season ending tournament, winning six of their seven games at the championship including two back-to-back 14-2 and 11-7 victories against the Hustlers on the final day. He said what makes this more admirable is the team had to play two more ballgames on that sunny day before the two-game final, creating quite a workload for the young team.
“For those girls to win four games in the heat when we haven’t played a lot of ball this season was pretty impressive,” Shaw said. “It wasn’t one or two girls carrying the team. It was all 14 girls working together as a team. If one struck out, the next one up got a hit. If one made an error, the next one made a play. That was pretty good.”
The Sox, who placed second in league standings after the regular season with an 8-1 record, started the final day with a victory over the Saskatoon Falcons at 8 a.m., before moving on to the powerhouse Warman Panthers at 10 a.m., who finished first in the regular season standings with an undefeated 10-0 record. Then came the hometown favourite Hustlers with the first game starting at 2 p.m. and the girls really started to show their mettle.
Shaw said the young team, which had seven rookies on the roster out of a squad of 14, had nine rainouts in its 18-game spring season causing problems with teaching aspects of the game to the girls. He said the club did manage to get in a few good practices though and with the help of assistant coaches Charmaine Bristow and Lindsay Cross, they did teach them a little about the great game of baseball.
“It was kind of tough for us, because in the city they group the kids or try them out,” Shaw said. “We had some girls that played some ball before and then we had some younger ones who weren’t quite as experienced, so basically it was just get them on the field and see what they’ve got.
“It was a steep learning curve for some of them,” he said. “A lot of the newer girls have improved quite a bit and we still had to keep some of the older girls interested, but we worked on things to keep them going too. We really didn’t have any expectations at the beginning of the year. We’re not in this for wins and losses. It’s to teach the girls how to play ball.”
The Sox now head to Regina July 6-8 for the provincial championships, where the Panthers and Hustlers as well as a few select clubs from the Regina league will join them. Shaw said the tourney will prove to be a difficult one for the team, but the girls will give it all they have, which is really all he can ask for.
“We’re not going there with any expectations, just like we weren’t going into this season with any,” he said. “We’re just hoping to play some good games, go there with a good attitude and try and play our best. If it doesn’t work out, we’ve still had a good season.”