The South Surrey/White Rock Thunder served notice they want to remain bantam B under-16 girls softball provincial champions.
Behind a powerful, virtually flawless pitching performance from Michaela Epp, who gave up just three hits over five innings, they were relentless in pounding the host Prince George Thunderbirds 14-0 Friday night at Freeman Park.
Coupled with an 8-2 win over the Langley Xstream earlier in the day, the Thunder have already emerged as one of the teams expected to hang around for Sunday's 4 p.m. championship game at the 18-team tournament.
Of their 15 hits against the T-birds, only one, a double by Ailanna Wrightson in the second inning, went for extra bases.
"We didn't have that many big hits, it's just the other team made simple errors that could have been outs," said the 16-year-old Epp. "Our team, even, did that too.
"I'm feel really happy I'm eligible to be on the team and that I'm able to be a part of it considering we won provincials last year in Abbotsford and we're striving to do it again this year."
The Thunder had a 3-0 lead built in the third inning when Prince George starter Alicia Strizich took a line drive off the finger of one of her catching hands. Already nursing a broken finger, she was taken to hospital to have her latest injury examined, and Aiyana Basi took over after just five warm-up pitches
Like Strizich, Basi was able to limit the Thunder to singles, but some shaky defence from her teammates left her helpless to stop the bleeding. T-birds manager Colk gave his bench players some playing time in the late innings and the Thunder teed off for seven more runs in the fifth before the mercy rule took effect.
"Their girls were hitting the ball and once they started hitting, the team didn't know what to do," said Basi, 16, who also filled in for Strizich in the Richmond game. "They're a good hitting team. They know what to do to connect with the ball and they have smart baserunning. I guess we''ll just learn from the game."
The T-birds pulled off a series of bunts to erase a 3-0 deficit in the third inning in their opener against the Richmond Islanders and reached the time limit in the fifth inning tied 3-3. Richmond used their international rules baserunner on second to generate the go-ahead run in the sixth.
"They were very focused in that game and I thought they did very well playing one of the top teams," said Prince George manager Walter Colk.
Colk knows his team is at a disadvantage living in an area of the province where winters are long. The sheer numbers of players in more populated areas also stack the odds against the only bantam girls team from northern B.C.
"Those guys play just about all year [outdoors] and we don't have that opportunity, and they have huge numbers to choose from," Colk said. "We were just at the B.C. Summer Games and the South Surrey coach told me they had 83 girls try out for his team of 12. We started with 16 and we still have 16. They're gamers and they are getting better as the season goes along but our season is far too short to be truly competitive with these teams down south."
While they didn't get the win, the T-birds showed marked improvement over the last time they faced Richmond a couple weeks ago in a tournament in Kelowna, an 11-1 loss.
"It's quite a confidence-booster playing at home, I have all my family here and my friends supporting me," said Basi. "We're going into the Penticton game confident and we'll do whatever it takes to win."
Prince George returns to the field today at 8 a.m. against Penticton, then takes on Langley at 2 p.m. The playoff round starts tonight at 7 p.m.
