After a morning thunderstorm delayed the start of the Provincial U15 Girls’ baseball tournament Friday morning, the Prince Albert Aces came out with two extremely strong showings.
The first game, scheduled for an 8 am start, began at 9:45 am due to the weather, and saw the hometown team give the visiting Saskatoon Hustlers a 13-4 drubbing.
“The girls had a good start,” head coach Scott Reed said. “Hopefully we can build momentum off of that. Our bats finally woke up in the second and third innings, which was nice.”
The Hustlers kept the Aces bats quiet early on, taking a 1-0 lead into the top of the third inning. Things changed quickly, however, as the Aces rattled off seven runs to take a lead they would never relinquish.S
askatoon scored another run in the bottom of the inning, but Prince Albert replied with three runs in the fourth and three more in the fifth on route to a 13-4 win.
Before the second game began, Reed was quick to state that for the future games, the Aces needed to have the same expectations.
“We need to be ready to play,” he said. “Our pitchers need to throw good games. Our defense needs to be there, and hopefully (we’re) hitting the ball again.”
Game two, against the Regina Saints, was a bit closer, but in the end, the home team prevailed. A two-run home run from Sarah McNabb that brought in teammate Grace Reed was the difference maker, as the Aces won 5-2.
“That was a great game,” Reed said aftewards. “It was a great team effort. We’re really happy with how the girls played. The pitching was great, the hitting was great, so it was great.”
The game was scoreless until third when both teams put two runs on the board in their half of the inning. The Aces took the lead for good in the top of the fourth with two more runs, then added an insurance marker in the seventh to secure the win.
Several games were delayed due to water collecting on the diamonds. It was only through the dedicated efforts of a few volunteers that the tournament was able to continue.
Due to rain delays, results from Prince Albert’s final game against the Saskatoon Lasers on Friday were not available by press time.
The Aces have one more round robin game on Saturday against the Regina Royals Rage before the playoffs.