A wise sea-farer once slurred: “Yarrr ye scallywag! Thar be treasure up on that there volcano, but ya best leave the squawkin’ an’ feather rustlin’ up to me parrot Four an’ a Half Sails.”
But what the hell would a pirate know about baseball anyway. There’s plenty for the University of Calgary women’s softball team to squawk and rustle their feathers about. They played an uncanny five games Sept. 24-25, finding chests of treasure along the way.
The first big X was marked up north on the map, so to Edmonton the ladies sailed on Saturday.
Their first game lasted just four innings due to a mercy rule. The team from Olds College folded faster than their fans could fold their chairs to leave, letting in a whopping 15 runs without putting one of their own on the scoreboard.
Perhaps a little low on ammo after firing so many cannonballs through OC’s ship, our ladies were a bit slow against the next band of goons pushed their way, NAIT. Although the U of C girls didn’t make any defensive errors, NAIT conjured up a storm whose winds found the holes in our sails, swinging seven runs onto the scoreboard to the U of C’s six.
“Some days it seems like they can’t hit anything at all,” said Dino Caity Hevey on NAIT’s consistency, “and other days they come out swinging.”
The tides then scurried our ladies back home for a trio of games in our backyard. First on the plank was the University of Lethbridge. The U of C shook the board nine times while allowing just two runs from the U of L.
Mount Royal College were the next to duel with our ladies. But the U of C blade was sharp, and MRC was cut down limb by limb to the tune of 4-0. Starting pitcher Theresa Manaloto was solid from the birds’ nest (read: pitchers’ mound) and cracked a couple from the helm too (read: she had some sweet hits behind the plate too).
The final game of the weekend was against Medicine Hat College. Our ladies put on a show with Jody Wolbaum’s home run being followed by a double from Manaloto and a triple from Hevey. The typically tough MHC took a swan dive over the starboard when the mercy rule kicked in with the U of C leading 9-1.
The ladies feel like doing just one thing after a weekend with five games and six hours of driving.
“I wanna go home and go to bed,” Hevey confirmed. “But you feel good about what you’ve done.”
Unfortunately, the girls weren’t done. They lost to MRC 7-1 and beat SAIT 10-3 Wed., Sept. 28.
Wolbaum and Annette Rocheleau each had home runs, breaking a 3-3 sixth-inning tie against SAIT.
As the competition crawls away–legs pegged, hands hooked and eyes patched–the U of C ladies prepare for battle in Lethbridge Sat., Oct. 1.