U10 Premier play hard in provincials

By Adelle Ellis, Times Reporter

Some of Strathmore’s youngest softball players, the Strathmore Thunder U10 Sr. Girls Premier softball team, returned from provincials on July 12-14 in Medicine Hat as the fourth best team in the province.
Winning their way to the provincials competition through a third place standing in the Calgary Minor Softball League, the young Thunder were up for the challenge and no stranger to challenging competition, having recently won a silver medal in the South Bow River Spring Tournament in Calgary at the beginning of June.
With 17 teams entered the provincial competition, the Thunder knew that they would have some close competition and that they would have to work hard and play harder.
Beginning in the B pool of provincials, the 11-player team started off slow with a close loss of 10-9. They quickly changed pace, however, winning the next three straight games. On Friday, they won 13-11 before pairing off their two Saturday games with closer scores of 7-6 to finish second in the B pool.
Their strong record helped the team get bumped to the playoff A pool on Sunday. Playing two games that day, the girls played hard but were unsuccessful in their attempts at victory even though the competition was close.
“Each game they dug deep and fought hard. We are proud of how far they came this year,” said Andrea Hazelwood, a mother of one of the players on the team. “Fourth in provincials is pretty impressive for our little Thunders, it was a hot one.”