What a way to spend a warm sunny evening, on the ball diamonds.
There was plenty of action at West Fraser Timber Park Wednesday evening with all three softball diamonds hosting girl’s softball.
The game between Cariboo Pulp, in their blue jerseys and Babcon in their red jerseys turned out to be a slugfest and a pitchers duel all in one with some heady base running to top it all off.
The final score saw CP walk away with a13-8 win. They chanted a few more cheers, shook hands and went home happy regardless of the score and that is just fine with CP assistant coach Craig Buchan.
“Most of the games the ladies don’t even know if we won or lost,” he said.
“To us [coaches] that means they are having fun regardless of the score.”
Rather than promote winning as the end goal, the coaches focus on teaching the girls the basics, the rules of the game and promoting good sportsmanship.
The first inning saw both pitchers throwing strikes, but it was Babcon that prevailed as they managed to get one runner to touch them all for a 1-0 lead.
Janelle Izzard, 12, pitched the first inning for CP and was pleased with the result.
Izzard collected two strikeouts in the first inning.
“Throwing it fast,” Izzard said was the key to hitting the strike zone.
The wheels came off the pitching in the second inning and the bats came alive as the girls got used to playing in the hot evening sun.
Cariboo Pulp filled the scoresheet with 11 runs on seven walks and four hits. Babcon collected five runs of their own to bring the score to 11-6 in favour of CP.
In addition to teaching the girls the basics of the game, Buchan said the coaches also give each player the opportunity to play at all the positions.
“Head coach Paige Flanagan and I just want the girls to have fun,” Buchan said.
“It’s a great team sport and we [coaches] have just as much fun as players.”