STELLARTON, N.S. – Their booming bats powered the Stellarton U14 Stingers to the championship at the annual Brian Jarvis memorial girls fastpitch tournament.
In the tournament held July 12 to 14 at the Dorrington Complex in Stellarton, the Stingers met Oromocto, N.B., in the championship game and came storming out of the gate, scoring four runs in the top of the first inning, on their way to a 16-9 win.
“The girls had a great weekend,” said head coach Steve Alexander. “They played really well.”
Pitcher Ryland Biron got the win for Stellarton, who received homers from Sarah Fraser and Emma MacLeod and two singles from Mallory Sangster.
The Stingers started July 12 with an 11-1 win over Highland Park (Halifax), with Biron getting the win in that game, and helped herself with a triple and single. The Stingers took advantage of some wild pitching from Highland Park and eked out numerous base-on-balls, and also got a triple and single off the bat of Josie Gunn.
The morning of July 13 saw the Stingers beat Memramcook, N.B., by a score of 15-5, with Gunn, Kiara Allen and Taylor Thomas combining to pitch Stellarton to the win.
Gunn, Sangster and Thomas all homered, Brooke Snyder had a triple for the Stingers, and catcher Emma Taylor snuffed out an early Memramcook rally; she spied a baserunner straying too far off third base and fired a laser-strike to gun her down for the third out of the inning.
“We work on that stuff quite a bit,” Alexander said of the improvised play. “They’re pretty intuitive, and are actually kind of students of the game.”
Next up, the Stingers suffered a 11-10 defeat at the hands of Oromocto, but still got into the crossover game, where they handled Memramcook in a 14-8 final. Elliott Richards had three hits, MacLeod tripled and homered and Sangster also slammed another four-bagger.
The U12 and U16 Stingers both made it to crossovers in the tournament but would go no further.
The U14 Stingers, who have exhibition games this weekend in Amherst against the P.E.I. U14 provincial team and Kennebecasis-Valley, N.B., will play at eastern Canadians Aug. 23-26 in Kennebecasis.
