MOOSEJAWTODAY.COM -- When the 2024 fastball season started, there was always a sense it could be a special one for a handful of Moose Jaw Ice teams.
The ever-growing pool of talent the local minor girls fastball program has seen develop over the years was starting to pay off more and more, and it seemed extremely likely a few of the local squads would have a shot at winning at the highest of levels.
And now the Moose Jaw U13 A Ice have done exactly that.
The Ice won the first-ever Western Canadian U13 Softball Championship on Sunday evening, besting nine teams from Alberta, Manitoba, B.C. and Saskatchewan to claim gold.
It was a weekend filled with ups and downs with a bit of controversy mixed in, all resulting in the first major national-level championship for a Moose Jaw team in recent years.
“Resilience would be the key,” said Ice head coach Jeff Bauck, who worked with the team alongside assistant coach Mel Durrant, assistant coach Kareena Kwasnicki and manager Christine Stokes.
“These girls had their backs up against the wall multiple times, they never got down, their mental toughness and drive really showed through. There are tons of girls who had to make sacrifices in their roles to make this happen, and when they were asked to make the changes, they did so with no problem and really showed the kind of players they are.
What more can I say about them, they were the perfect team.”
Here’s a feature-length look at how the Ice became Western Canadian Softball champions.
The Beginning
To say the least, it had been a busy and successful season for the Ice heading into nationals -- with an emphasis on busy.
The Ice had played 43 games as a team in league and tournament play heading into Westerns, but house league and Sask Summer Games duties had pushed that total far, far higher -- with Bauck estimating the majority of their crew had around 80 games under their belts before seeing a pitch in Brandon.
“So we were pretty beat up coming in,” Bauck admitted. “Lily Kwasnicki, her back was giving her trouble, Riley (Ziffle), her thigh was bothering her, quite a few of the girls had something or another that was bothering them.”
It didn’t seem to matter in their opening contest, though, as they’d roll to a 10-0 win over B.C.’s Tri-City Titans. Things didn’t go as well in their next outing, an 8-1 loss to B.C.’s Ridge Meadows Pride, but coming out of play Thursday with at least a win was a positive in Bauck’s eyes.
“In our first game, we were amped up and looked great and won 10-0, so we thought that was great, we’re off to a good start,” he said. “Then our second game, we were as flat as can be. We got mercy-ruled, their pitcher looked good but we didn’t do anything to help ourselves. Still, if you would have told me that after Day 1 we’d be 1-1, I’d take it.”
The Protest
The Ice got back on track with a 12-8 win over B.C.’s Langley XTreme on Friday morning before facing Manitoba champion Interlake in their fourth round-robin game, a contest that would feature some extremely unusual controversy.
“So Taya Babich comes up in the fifth and strokes a triple to right field, and as the play is going on, the fans start screaming ‘you don’t have a right fielder, you don’t have a right fielder’,” Bauck explained. “For whatever reason, they didn’t have anyone out there to start the inning.”
That led to an umpire conference, with the decision being a restart of the inning.
Seeing that they had a runner on third base because of the miscue, Bauck decided to step in and try and make the best of the situation for his team.
“I talk to the umpires and said it was the job of the coaches to make sure the kids were out there, I don’t know if there were substitutions or where the mistake was, but that should be the responsibility of that coaching staff,” he said. “But the umpire’s point of view was different and they said it was their job to make sure everyone was out there before play ball was announced.”
Bauck decided things needed to be taken a step further and opted to file a formal protest, which drew members of the host committee to the diamond -- and the revelation that a payment of $250 would be needed to do so.
“So I kid you not, I’m out there panhandling our fans, and thank God grandparents were out there because they’re the only ones who carry cash anymore,” Bauck said with a laugh. “So we pay $250 for this protest, they go back and look at the rules, and it turns out it is actually a rule, it is the umpire’s responsibility, so they’re going to call that triple back.”
The Ice weren’t able to get a repeat at the plate once the game restarted and would go on to a 9-6 defeat.
“So it is what it is, we move on, we end up losing,” Bauck said. “It was tough, we knew we needed that game, and now it’s ‘we have to win both on Saturday’.”
The Tiebreaker
Unfortunately for the Ice, things didn’t go well in their first game the following day.
After falling behind 3-0, the Eastman Wildcats scored multiple runs in every inning after, taking a 14-5 mercy-rule victory.
That dropped the Ice to 2-3 in the round robin and left the team wondering what it would take to somehow find their way into a tiebreaker.
“So then we had to figure out what needed to happen for us to qualify for Sunday, and if you’ve seen that Charlie Day meme with the board and a thousand different scenarios, that was us in that trailer,” Bauck said of meeting with tournament officials to work through what the situation was. “I figure I spent an hour with them as we tried to figure out what had to happen.”
In the end, the answer was just win. And wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what happened.
The Ice hammered out 21 hits and took advantage of six walks to put up a 21-14 victory over the host Westman Magic to finish the preliminary round 3-3 and tied with Westman for fourth place.
That meant a tiebreaker was played immediately after, with Moose Jaw making it 36 runs in two games with a 15-5 mercy-rule win over the Magic
As a result, they were off to the Page Playoff 3-4 game against the Saskatoon Hustlers on Sunday, where some more controversy would take place.
The Delay
Sunrise on Sunday morning brought with it steady rain, and that would factor into the Ice game against the Hustlers.
A monster home run off the bat of Evelyn Stokes gave Moose Jaw a quick 4-0 lead in the first inning when the skies opened up, bringing a halt to the proceedings for a few hours.
When the teams were able to return to play in the early afternoon, Saskatoon advocated for the game to be completely restarted, something Bauck was having none of.
“I didn’t feel it would be right to restart because if it had been three-up, three-down, there wouldn’t have been a conversation and we’d have just picked it up,” he said. “The umpires agreed, and we picked up where we left off.”
Unfortunately, that decision rankled the Hustlers fans, learning to some acrimony between themselves and the Moose Jaw supporters as the game progressed.
“Tensions were really high and there was a lot of heckling between our fan groups, so I pulled the girls in and said ‘hey, this has nothing to do with the Hustlers players or coaches’,” Bauck said with emphasis. “We have a lot of respect for them, there will be a lot of years playing against each other and with each other on provincial teams, so we made sure to keep it classy on the field and it was really good that way.”
In the end, how things had gone in provincials a couple weeks earlier ended up the same this time around, with the Ice taking a 14-10 win and getting into the semifinal.
The Change-Up
Unfortunately for the Ice, that game against Interlake got off to a brutal start.
A five-run first inning set the tone, and before Moose Jaw could gather their bearings, they were down 10-3.
“At some point the Cinderella story is done. We’re 80 games deep, I don’t blame the girls for being out of gas,” Bauck said of his thoughts at the time. “Then it’s 10-5 after four, their starting pitcher is out of the game, and the girl who took over was really strong, too. So it didn’t look good at the time.”
Thing is, the Ice had been making contact and had seven hits through four innings. The pitching change proved to be just what the doctor ordered -- five runs in the fifth tied things up and one four-run inning later, they had Interlake on the ropes.
“I don’t know what happened, but after that, it was just bing, bang, bong, the girls started hitting everything, and you could see it was starting to get to their pitcher, too,” Bauck said.
The key was going to be finding a way to shut down the Phillies' potent offence, with a sideline conversation helping that happen.
Winslow -- a pick-up from the provincial champion Swift Current ‘B’ Sonics -- was set to take over on the mound in the third inning, but hadn’t been pitching as effectively as she could. Sonics coach Cory Winslow, Kaleigh’s father, took notice and approached Bauck with the suggestion that she throw more change-ups
“I said ‘hey Cory, she says she doesn’t really have one, and when she has been throwing it it’s been flat’. He says ‘no, no, it’ll be fine, trust me’,” Bauck said. “I have a lot of respect for him, so I said ‘you know your daughter a lot better than I do, how about you go down the third baseline and call her pitches’. So we started relaying them into our catcher, and wouldn’t you know it, Kaleigh comes in, pitches three innings of relief and has that change-up dancing. It was absolutely awesome.”
Winslow ended up allowing three runs on five hits over the final three innings, more than enough defence with the way Moose Jaw’s bats had come together.
In the end, it led to a 16-13 win and a spot in the Western Canadian final.
“When I talk about mental fortitude, that’s what I mean,” Bauck said. “It could have been us who had things come apart, but it was always the other team that would buckle and I couldn’t be more proud of these girls.”
The Final
Heading into the championship game, Stokes had emerged as one of the top hitters in the tournament, something that almost didn’t happen thanks to a broken wrist during the 2022 season.
The injury had cast doubts on her being able to play this summer, but things improved to the point she could take the field.
Unfortunately, Stokes would be hit by a pitch in the same area early in the Western final, with the damage causing immediate swelling. Stokes wanted nothing to do with her bat coming out of the game, though, and in an incredibly close contest with the Eastman Wildcats, Bauck snuck her into left field with hopes a ball wouldn’t find her.
“And sure enough one gets hit out to her,” Bauck said incredulously. “She makes a great running catch to save the play, but the damage was done, and she comes back in and says she can’t grip the ball.”
With Stokes beside herself after being forced out of the game, the Ice suddenly had something else to play for -- a fallen teammate. And with Winslow’s change-up wreaking havoc on the Eastman batters to the tune of only two runs over five innings, they knew it would take something heroic to reach the finish line.
The Slam
Enter Riley Ziffle.
With two triples, a run scored and a 3-for-3 game under her belt to that point -- in addition to four hits in the semifinal -- it’s safe to say the second-year veteran was swinging a hot bat.
The game was still tied 2-2 heading into the fifth when the Ice started a rally.
Winslow got things started with a single, Kamdyn Chute knocked her to third with a base hit and Madison Bauck plated Chute with another single to give the Ice their first lead. Chloe Beliveau then re-loaded the bases with a walk.
That brought Ziffle to the plate, and she took the second pitch she faced over the left field wall for a grand slam and one of the biggest hits in Moose Jaw Minor Girls Fastball history.
“The home run, what more can you say,” Bauck said. “Riley had been clutch all weekend, she gets that grand slam and put on her biggest performance under the brightest lights.
“The growth she had as a leader this season was unbelievable, and keep in mind this girl is only 13 years old. There were multiple times she’d call a time-out on her own and talk them through what they needed to do, calmed them down, and it was great leadership on her end.
I’m really excited to see what the future holds for her.”
Ziffle also got the job done in the circle in the final two innings, and when Babich scored on a wild pitch in the top of the seventh to make it a six-run game and impossible for Eastman to catch up, the celebration was on.
The Future
Needless to say, with such a young group of players on the rise, things look very bright for the 2012 group going forward -- and that’s not even taking into account the U11 provincial gold and silver medalist Ice, or the U15 Ice who will be at Canadians this week, or the U19 Ice who just finished up their appearance at Canadians this past weekend.
“About four years ago, Pat Boyle said ‘hey, we should get these off-season camps going’, so we got a group of 10 friends together and these kids are all from that original group… we’re so blessed to have Sowden Flanagan and GAP (Gottselig Athletic Performance) and the Yara Centre,” Bauck said.
“That first year we had 10 kids, then more and more families wanted to get involved. Chad Topp, Deana Kempel, Robin Bushko, Cory Olafson, they were all like ‘we have to grow this thing’. So now, the basic talent in Moose Jaw is absolutely huge.
“The future is so bright, there’s a huge abundance of talent coming up, and there’s been a huge growth that’s going to continue.”
