Estevan Elite lived up to their name as the U12 girls won B provincials this weekend in Regina.
The Elite went undefeated in the round robin part of the 11-team tournament Friday and Saturday and proceeded to the gold medal game Sunday against the Unity Panthers.
“We only lost a couple of games all year between our exhibition games and our season,” coach Randy Gooding said. “We went in and we knew we had really good pitchers, and a fairly good infield.”
Then the Elite started connecting at the plate, which had been in issue at times during the season.
“It made it a lot easier,” Gooding said.
The gold medal game against Unity was tied 6-6 after the fourth inning and as the game went on still close, extra innings were needed to decide the game. The sixth inning ended 11-10, with Unity tying the game in the top of the seventh. Estevan couldn’t score in their half of the inning, bringing on an extra eighth inning, which the teams exchanged runs.
“It got pretty nerve wracking,” Gooding said. “The girls, they stayed in it and kept on cheering and working hard…
“I wasn’t surprised. Unity’s known to be a pretty good ball team every year. We’d already played them once and it was a tough game.”
It took until the ninth inning with a Zoey Thompson ripped a walkoff hit to the outfield, scoring a runner from second base.
“Everyone say there with their fingers crossed and kept cheering,” Gooding said. “We got one of our better hitters up there (Thompson) and we got to that part of the lineup and she got the right hit and got the run home.”
Both Thompson and Katelyn Zukewich pitched well for the Elite during the tournament but Gooding preferred not to single out any players on the team since they all played well.
“Everyone worked together pretty hard,” Gooding said. “I can’t say anyone did any better than anyone.”
