Thunder softball team has great first league weekend

By Sean Rooney on May 15, 2018.

Medicine Hat News

The resurgence in Medicine Hat softball is continuing with its top team entering a league — and starting off pretty darn well.

The Medicine Hat Thunder under-16 team went 4-1 in their first weekend of play in the Girls Prairie League of Softball, capping it off with a wild, come-from-behind 7-6 win over the Irma Tigers Sunday.

Kylie Finley’s RBI single brought in pinch-runner Kennedy Lanigan for the winning run in the seventh inning. Medicine Hat trailed 6-3 entering their final at-bat according to assistant coach Sean Bourassa.

The GPLS is in its eighth season, with more than 100 teams in all. The Thunder are in the eight-team under-16 B division.

Their opener was against the Unity Panthers, who wound up going 5-0 on the weekend and outscoring their opponents 63-5. So the 9-1 loss wasn’t that bad in retrospect.

Wins of 8-3 and 7-4 over Sedgwick’s Oilers, then a big 15-0 win over the Olds Pistols led to the exciting Sunday finale. Irma had entered the game unbeaten on the weekend.

Rachel Werre went 2-0 on the mound and also drove in six runs. Mia Kelly had a 2-1 record as a pitcher and at the plate tied with Maddy King for the best team batting average at .462. Brooke King (.770 on base percentage) and Presley Gainer (six runs) were also statistical leaders for the Thunder.

Medicine Hat will get to see the other three teams in their division — St. Albert, Calahoo and Red Deer — when they travel to St. Albert for games next month.

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