The Bonnyville Angels under-16 girls fastball team brought home a provincial gold medal in late June after a come-from-behind championship game victory.
The Angels found themselves down 7-2 in the fifth inning to the Hanna Fusion before battling back to provincial glory, which included scoring three runs in the seventh and final inning.
“When we were down 7-2 the girls really didn't think they still had a chance, but we had a little encouragement talk and told the just we had nothing to lose,” said Head Coach John Letwinetz. “I told them they might only have one chance to play for gold in a provincial competition, dig deep, dig hard and they did.”
The tournament took place from June 28 to 30 in Leduc and saw the top teams from across the province convene to battle it out for the Provincal D championship.
The Angels tournament kicked off with a laugher against Stettler, which saw Bonnyville come out on top by a 16-1 score. In the second game the girls met their match and were narrowly defeated by Red Deer, losing 8-7. Bonnyville finished out their round robin games with a 6-2 win over Delburne and an 11-3 romp of Calgary-Nose Creek.
A second place finish in their pool put them into a semi-final rematch with Red Deer, the only team who managed to beat them.
“We used a different strategy. We had a multitude of pitchers and catchers. We did some bunting and ran the bases very well,” said Letwinetz. “The girls were really into it. We had some sacrifices. The girls got pumped knowing the could beat them.”
Bonnyville came away with a 6-3 victory, giving Letwinetz and his team confidence they could win the tournament, as they went on to pull off an amazing comeback victory over Hanna in the finals.
The provincial win capped off a great season for the Angels who finished second in their Lakeland league during the regular season. Letwinetz admitted at the start of the season he wouldn't have guessed his team had a chance at provincials and was happy to see them pull out the victory.
“It was a rainy tournament. The final day turned out to be a great sunny day, but it rained the rest of the time. One of our games even had a three hour rain delay,” said Letwinetz. “It was a very rainy season and I think that actually helped the girls because we did play three games throughout our regular Lakeland season in the rain. It conditioned the girls a little bit.”
As of last week the team had yet to decide if they were going to travel to Westerns, as many members of the team were busy with prior commitments and vacation plans.
