The U19B Parksville Rage just missed the bronze medal at the 2018 Softball BC Provincial Championship that was held in Fleetwood July 6-8.
The Oceanside Minor Softball squad went through some tough matches and came close to reaching the gold medal round. The Rage ended up finishing in fourth place.
Head coach Kris McNichol praised the performance of his athletes who, despite not having any spare players, never wavered from their game.
“We had a very good run,” said McNichol. “It was exciting.”
The Rage finished the round robin in fourth place with a 3-0 record and earned their place in the gold pool division, which was a double knockout round.
McNichol said the scheduling was too hectic with very little time to recover. He pointed out they were able to find that extra energy in every game.
On Saturday night, they lost 4-2 against the eventual winners, the Ridge Meadow Rage.
The next day, the Parksville Rage had to be up early to play at am 8 a.m. against the Cawston Koyotes. The Parksville Rage found themselves trailing 6-1 in the bottom of the seventh. McNichol said the Rage did not quit and rallied to steal the win from the Koyotes.
“We had the bases loaded with the tying run in third and winning run in second,” said McNichol. “We had one out so I felt we were in good position. I had my hitter number three and she has been playing excellent but she struck out. I said ‘no worries.’ I still had my fourth hitter Piper Doerkson and all we need is the tying run. Doerkson got behind the count with two strikes but she ended up hitting the ball to the fence and we won the game. We were all so happy while the other team was obviously distraught. We pretty much robbed them of the victory.”
The Rage didn’t have a lot of time to rest from the first game as they have to play again at 10 a.m. They took on View Royal from Victoria. The game was scoreless in the first two innings but in the third, View Royal notched five runs but it was short lived as the Rage responded in the fourth inning with five runs as well to square things up at 5-5.
McNichol said, during the game, he lost two of his Grade 12 players who had to head back to Parksville to attend the Ballenas dry grad, leaving him with only nine players. They battled on and racked up another five runs in the sixth inning enroute to an impressive 11-5 win.
Recovery time for the Rage had to be quick because they had to play their next game at 12 p.m.
“There’s no breaks,” said McNichol. “We had no spares. So this girls are playing with nothing but heart. It’s unreal.”
McNichol said they needed this one game to advance to the gold medal round. 1
They took on the South Delta Invaders and despite keeping the game close, they gave up three runs and could only muster one run to lose 3-1. The Invaders finished in third place and the Rage fourth.
Throughout the tournament, the Parksville Rage went 5 wins and two losses where they gave up only four runs.
“That’s how close we were,” said McNichol. “It was incredible. They gave me their very best and the fight in them was just unreal. I am so proud of them.”
The Rage team consist of Piper Doerkson, Taylyn Squire, Karissa Coughtry, Jaymi Wallace, Sara Burnett, Dakotah Harstad, Alicia O’Connell, Syvanna McNichol, Keely Dodds, Kiley Ludlow, Rhyse Kennedy, Madison Jacobson and Sydney Dolling.
The other coaches are Mike O’Connell and Mike Squire.