The Prince George Thunderbirds under-14 girls softball team is picking up right where it left off last season.
Coming off a B Division Silver Tier provincial championship last summer, the T-birds are off to a blistering 12-2 start in tournament play and it's no fluke they've been belting the ball with regularity against teams from the southern part of the province, where outdoor ball diamonds open a month before they do in Prince George.
"I think it's just the depth of our team - from one through 12 they're all strong athletes," said U14 T-birds head coach Lee J. Leslie. "Unlike in the past, where you had to be specific where you put players, we are very fortunate that all our girls can play - other than specific positions like pitcher-catcher - they can play any position."
Typically, T-birds teams have a difficult time catching up to opponents from the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and Okanagan opponents who are already well-seasoned by the time Prince George girls play their first game of the season. The T-birds overcame that climatic disadvantage by taking their game indoors to the Charles Jago Northern Sport Centre fieldhouse at UNBC and to a local autobody shop, where they've been knocking the leather off balls through the cold-weather months in a makeshift batting cage.
"(Assistant coach) Doug Sturgeon and I have always preached hitting, swing away, from a young age, where some of the other coaches were about walking and getting on base," said Leslie. "Our philosophy was base running was easy and you can learn that at any age, but if you don't swing and get that hand-eye co-ordination and get confident in your ball contact it's going to be a struggle later on.
"We did lots of throwing and hitting and drills to work on fundamentals and it is really paying dividends. Thankfully we have a facility like UNBC that's available to us in the winters. The batting cage is important but you still need to throw and you still need to field. We utilize the pitching machine and can duplicate fly balls for these girls so they get their depth perception and get comfortable fielding and working cutoffs."
The girls have also benefited from chalkboard strategy sessions and from a strength and conditioning program at the Sport Centre set up by Dave Adolph of EngageSport. Adoph spent 10 years working as a trainer with the UBC baseball team learning sport-specific exercises.
Hannah Case and Kaitlyn Doucette have been clobbering the ball. Through 14 games, Case leads the T-birds with a .640 batting average, while Doucette, one of two Quesnel natives on the team, is hitting .625 and has three home runs.
"We have six or seven girls on the team hitting at or above the .500 mark," said Leslie.
Doucette, a lefthander, is one of four pitchers on the team. The other three chuckers are Rylee Paterson of Quesnel, Tessa Sturgeon and Jasmine Polajzar.
"The biggest surprise this year has been our depth in pitching," said Leslie. "Typically we are happy if we have two pitchers that can consistently throw strikes but this year we have a core group of four girls that pitch well and allow us to rely on our strong defense.
"The beauty is that they all have their own styles which keeps opposing batters from getting too comfortable in the batter's box."
The other U14 players are Brooklyn Hill, Camryn Frie, Faith Young, Jordan Maloney, Morgan Case, Tayleur Courtice and Avery Leslie. Former Thunderbirds Dallas Tobin and Lindsay Gervais are also helping coach the team.
The first two tournaments the T-birds attended, in Kelowna and South Delta, were icebreakers and there were no playoffs. They returned to Kelowna last weekend and placed fourth in a 24-team tournament, they went 4-1 and lost in the semifinal. The U-14 B provincials will be held July 14-16 in Surrey.
The U-16 Thunderbirds coached by Jason Dauvin will also be in Richmond for a tournament this weekend. The U-16 roster includes Brooke Lewis, Hannah McKinley, Sydney Casey, Kacie Dauvin, Mandy Pratt, Abbie Turner, Mishayla Christensen, Katie Kilburn, Brooke Behiel, Camryn Scully, Emily Motley, Caley Leslie and Denika Nichols.
Registration in the Price George Minor Girls Softball is up slightly this year to 210 players, enough for a house league which includes five mite teams, five squirt teams, four peewee teams and three bantam/midget squads.
