UPDATE: The Swift Current Sonic have won the Softball Saskatchewan U13 B provincial title.
The Sonic defeated the Parkland Predators 7-4 Sunday at the Jody Waloshin Softball Diamonds in Estevan. Meanwhile, the Saskatoon Hustlers defeated another Saskatoon team, the Twin City Angel Queens 13-6 to win the bronze medal.
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ESTEVAN - The final is set for the Softball Saskatchewan U13 AA B provincial championship, happening at the Jody Waloshin Softball Diamonds in Estevan.
The Parkland Predators will face the Swift Current Sonic in the gold-medal game. Meanwhile, the Saskatoon Hustlers will face the Twin City Angel Queens to decide who wins bronze.
The contests are slated to start at 3:45 p.m. They were to start at 2:30 p.m., but had to be pushed back due to the length of one of the semifinals.
Twenty-one teams are entered in the tournament, which started Friday morning.
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Estevan was represented in the tournament by the Elite, a team comprised of players from Estevan's house league teams. They went 2-2 in the tournament and came within a win of making it to Sunday's playoffs.
"We battled in there every game. They played well and they showed up for every game. They knew they wanted to win and put on a show for the hometown crowd," said head coach Brad Zukewich.
He was particularly impressed with the team's pitching and baserunning during provincials. They also managed some hits against really good pitchers they hadn't faced before.
Estevan opened provincials with an 11-9 victory over the Carlyle-based Southeast Supernovas, which boast players from throughout the southeast corner. The Novas had a 3-1 lead at one point, but Estevan rallied with five runs in each of the fourth and fifth innings.
"We played them before and we knew it was going to be close. It's always good when you beat a local team, especially a game in provincials, and we knew once we beat them we had a shot of making the playoffs," said Zukewich.
Estevan opened the scoring in its next game against the Saskatoon Hustlers when Brynn Hubick singled in a run, but lost 7-1. The Hustlers scored five times in the fourth inning.
Madison Zukewich allowed two runs, one of them unearned, and struck out five in two innings pitched.
The Elite played twice on Saturday. The first game was a 13-4 victory over the Meadow Lake Sox, a game Estevan trailed 3-0 in the first inning. Everleigh Blanchette had an inside-the-park home run, and Danae Schlamp hit a two-run double.
Then Estevan lost 11-9 to the Regina Royals Rockers in their final game. Even if Estevan would have won the game, they would have missed out on the playoffs. Estevan would have tied the Hustlers and Saskatoon's Twin City Angels Queens for first place at 3-1, but the Elite would have lost the tie-breaker because they fell to the Hustlers and didn't play the Queens.
Estevan fell behind 10-2 at one point against the Rockers in the second inning, but fought back to make it close.
"We played that game to have fun. We put other people in different positions and changed everything up for their last game together," said Brad Zukewich.
Estevan was in a six-team pool, while the other three pools had five squads.
Zukewich was pleased with how the Elite handled being the host team. Not only were they busy on the diamonds with four games in two days, but they had other duties between games.
"I think they handled it very well. There were a lot of kids around and a lot of them aren't used to seeing that many [people at games] in Estevan. They talked to a lot of the friends they knew, and they were pretty busy with running around and selling 50-50 tickets and everything else," said Zukewich.
He also praised Estevan Minor Softball and all of their volunteers for their work in making the tournament happen.
"I've been a part of 10-15 provincials, and I would say this was the best one that I've been a part of or at," said Zukewich.
Every little detail was covered, including having water coolers at diamonds, maintaining the fields, having good food at the concession and more.
The Supernovas went 2-2 at provincials. After their opening loss to the Elite, they recovered to defeat the Queens 4-3. They lost 13-6 to the Saskatoon Hustlers on Saturday, but responded with a 12-6 win over Meadow Lake.
