By Robb Fenton
After surrendering two runs in the top of the first inning, it was all up hill for the Lloydminster ‘B’ Rebels.
This past weekend, while hosting the 2010 Alberta Provincial Softball Championship, the B Rebels claimed the bronze medal thanks to a huge 17-2 win in the third place game Sunday afternoon.
The Rebels scored 17 straight runs to blowout the Calgary Diamond Devils 96/97s in a game that lasted just three innings.
“It was really awesome to come back and beat someone who had already beaten us in the round robin – they actually mercied us,” Rebels head coach Tracy Blanchard said following the win. “We knew we had to put our best foot forward and it had to be an errorless, and the girl’s bats, as always, came through. It seemed like that was our strong point, our bats, so it was nice.”
After being down 2-0 after the top of the first, the Rebels quickly got up to bat and scored five runs of their own, grabbing a lead that they would never be in danger of losing.
In their next two at-bats, the Rebels put up 12 more runs, earning the lopsided win in a shortened game called due to the 10-run mercy rule.
“When the girls are coming to the plate and consistently hitting, there is just no stopping them. In this kind of ball, (pee wee level), you don’t see a lot of fielders who are able to get to balls that are hit over their heads,” Blanchard explained. “It was awesome to see the power.”
The Rebels had their ups and downs all weekend and over the course of the season.
Following a great start, where the Rebels opened the tournament with a big win over St. Albert, they ran in to some tough times, but bounced back and earned their way to the semi-finals.
Like the entire tournament, the Rebels bounced back from their semi-finals loss to claim the bronze medal.
“We had a great start, we had a couple of deflating moments, but the true signs of a good team is being able to bounce back and pick yourself up, dust yourself off and go hard at the next game,” Blanchard said, adding she is proud of her team for never giving up or quitting. “Luckily both times we were able to do that and we persevered and a positive result came out at the end.”
The 2010 season has been a learning experience for the Rebels who have a lot of new faces in their lineup up, but regardless of who was playing, or where they were playing, the girls gave it everything they had and Blanchard couldn’t say enough about the determination of her team.
“I’m very, very proud of this team. These girls are inexperienced, we have a lot of first year girls, a couple of girls that hadn’t played ball before, but the vets helped carry the team,” she said. “Our pitching staff was awesome, girls stepped up and did a lot of work on off-days just to learn new positions, so we’re more than happy with this.”
Blanchard admitted they didn’t have a certain expectation coming into the tournament, other than to play their best and do well.
They did, however, feel if they played their game, they would have a chance at a medal and they fought hard to come away with a provincial bronze.
“It’s great. For our organization in general, we had our sights set on doing well, we just didn’t know how well we could do,” she said. “We didn’t want to set our goals too high then get overwhelmed and come away with a not so famous finish, so we just wanted to take this tournament one game at a time, get through it and hope for the best.”