The Moose Jaw Ice didn’t leave much to chance when it came to defending their Softball Sask provincial Under-17 girls fastball championship this past weekend.
Once they got through their first game -- a 6-5 barnburner against Regina Royals -- it was nothing but winning the rest of the way, and the Iocal crew would go undefeated through their five games to repeat as provincial champions.
Following their win over the Royals, the Ice took a 9-6 win over the Melfort Spirit and 9-1 win over the Saskatoon Hustlers to finish on top of their round robin pool. They followed with a 10-0 win over the Saskatoon Lasers in the semifinal before finishing things off with a 6-3 victory over the Regina Saints in the gold medal game.
“It was incredible,” said Ice head coach Paul Litzenberger. “We had a core group of 10 girls and they just busted their butts the whole time and we couldn’t be prouder of how they played all weekend.”
While team games require team wins, there’s little question who the standout of the tournament was for Moose Jaw. Veteran pitcher Ava Unser saw action in all five games -- including four complete games -- to lead her team to the provincial title.
“Ava Unser, I’m not even sure what to say,” Litzenberger said. “She ended up pitching every game, starting four of the five, and threw 460 pitches for us. It was amazing. We kept asking her every game how her arm was feeling, but it worked out well because the games were spread enough apart that she had time to recover. “
Unser had only one game where the opposition was a real threat, that being the opener where the Royals put up five runs on seven hits and led until the bottom of the seventh, when Aubrey Clarke and Macy Litzenberger scored runs to give Moose Jaw the win.
Unser then tossed the final 2 ⅔ against Melfort and scattered three hits while striking out five, allowed only two hits and struck out nine in the win over the Hustlers, put up a one-hitter while striking out five against the Lasers and allowed three runs on seven hits, six walks and struck out 10 against the Saints in the final.
Of course, having her teammates push double-digits in offence most games certainly didn’t hurt the Ice ace, and that production came from up and down the line-up.
Clarke and Ashley Breitkreuz each hit a pair of home runs during the tournament, but it was Mallory Tendler’s round-tripper against the Hustlers that showed just how much everyone contributed throughout the tournament.
“Four of (the home runs) were from girls we expected because they have some power, but one of them was from our nine hitter who just puts the bat on the ball,” Litzenberger said of Tendler’s home run. “It was great for her, because she played ‘B’ last year and we’ve been working on her confidence that she’s an ‘A’ player, and for her to get a home run was just awesome.”
Seeing the team’s overall unity was also a positive, especially when it came to sorting through any kind of adversity.
“Even if we were down in an inning or a mistake was made or things weren’t going our way for a while, nobody went after anybody, they just rallied,” Litzenberger said, adding that the players themselves often took ownership when it came to in-game situations.
“Even in the final one of our team leaders, Aubrey Clarke, said ‘girls come together we’re figuring this out’ and they got together in a circle on their own, chatted about it for 30 seconds, came up with a plan and went from there.
“As coaches, we worked with them, and now it’s just steer them in the right direction and go. It’s really cool.”
The Ice will now be one of four Saskatchewan teams competing in the Softball Canada U17 National Championship Aug. 9-13 in Saskatoon, with the team looking improve on their showing from the 2022 championship in Ontario.
“This team had to overcome a lot more adversity than last year, when they had to discover that they could win,” Litzenberger said. “This year, they knew they could do it, and they just had to prove it... It’s always going to be tough at nationals, but we’ll see what happens and hopefully things go really well.”
