Richmond 2005 Islanders wrapped up an outstanding season with a silver medal finish at Softball B.C.’s U12B Provincial Championships in Maple Ridge.
The Islanders went undefeated in round-robin play — producing wins over Kelowna Heat, Ridge Meadows Rage ’05, Central Vancouver Island Rage and South Surrey White Rock Thunder ’05 to earn the number two seed for the playoff round.
The girls faced Thunder ’05 in the opening playoff game and won convincingly 13-5. It was a much tighter affair against the Coquitlam ’05 Classics with plenty of excellent defence by both teams. The international tiebreaker rule was needed and Richmond squeezed out an exciting 4-3 victory.
That set the stage for showdown with unbeaten and top seed Langley Xtreme — considered by many as the favourites heading into the tournament.
Trailing 2-0 in the fourth, the Islanders’ bats came to life to take a 4-2 lead. Langley responded to tie the game in its half of the inning and eventually jumped ahead in a 6-5 win to lock up a spot in the gold medal game.
Richmond squared off with Coquitlam again and came through with a dominating 8-1 victory to advance to the final.
The Islanders continued the momentum in the championship game, jumping to an early 3-0 lead. The Xtreme answered with four of their own and later added a pair of insurance runs in the fifth en route to a 7-4 victory.
The Islanders had battled from the start, worked hard and never gave up but just couldn’t come up with enough to close the gap.
This second-year team has much to be proud of. The girls showed remarkable improvement during the regular season, securing gold medal tournament wins and playing hard to win the District playdowns. It was an impressive journey topped off by a well-earned provincial silver medal.
The team includes: Aliyah Chase, Scotia Chow, Marley Goodhew, Caitlin Kippan, Lindsay Lim, Manisha Mann, Abby Mischke, Rylee Sagert, Paige Sever, Izabel Taylor, Madison Wong and Caeli Yamanaka.
The coaches are Michelle Akizuki, Kelly Sagert, Emily Yee, Laura Booth and Alex Lowe.
