A new slo-pitch tournament that took place over the weekend brought together female players for camaraderie and fun competition.
The new Wesclean Cup, which featured five ladies teams as well as four male teams, took over the Fritz Theil park diamonds from July 8 to 10.
The Harley’s Ball Crushers, a team of 11 players, won the final game 18-8 against the Gateway Scorpions Sunday afternoon. Brittany Whitman of the Scorpions assisted Shandie LaBorde of Harley’s in organizing the weekend play.
“I moved here to Yellowknife in 2019 and before that I primarily only played ladies ball,” Whitman explained, noting that she mostly plays co-ed slo-pitch during ball season. “I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I played this weekend. I was really excited that we could give the sport some life.”
Many participants in the tournament had little experience playing with one another. The genesis of the event, however, came from the Harley’s team, travelling together to participate exclusively in the Hay River Ladies Slo-Pitch tournament in the last two years. Aside from territorial championships in Inuvik, the annual Hay River event is among the few tournaments where women get to play alongside one another with an 11-inch ball in the Northwest Territories. LaBorde said because her teammates have always had a positive experience at the South Slave tournament, she wanted to develop similar opportunities in Yellowknife.
“We have been going to Hay River for two years and we have always talked about having a ladies tournament here,” she said. “When we started getting girls together to play in Hay River, we knew then that once we got it going, they would love it. That is the feedback that I have gotten in the last two tournaments in Hay River and that is the feedback this weekend from all five teams.”
Both Whitman and LaBorde were very happy with the result as there have been attempts in the past to get an all-ladies slo-pitch tournament off the ground in Yellowknife without much success. In 2016, LaBorde said there was an effort, but not enough players signed up to make it possible.
“Getting the five female teams this year we were very surprised,” LaBorde said. “Most tournaments have an entry fee of $500 but we kept this fee low at $350 to encourage teams to play and we think that helped.”
Looking ahead, she hopes to have a similar event next year, though the sponsored name of the tournament may not stay the same. LaBorde said she was grateful to get the support from Wesclean as well as other companies like Sutherland’s Drugs and Black Knight Pub. As of yet there is no championship trophy. The winning Harleys team received $500 while the Scorpions, as the second place finisher, recouped their tournament entry fee of $350.
On the men’s side, Zach Campbell’s Balls Deep team defeated Skoden 24-12 on Sunday afternoon.
The tournament also recognized outstanding players with prizes. On the women’s side, Karlee McKay with Harley’s won most valuable player. Golden glove, or best defensive player, went to Chrissie Carrigan of Harley’s. Ariel Whaley of the Scorpions won pitcher of the tournament. Among the men, Gus Mandeville of Balls Deep won most valuable player and the best male pitcher went to Jason Clarke of the same team. The Golden glove award went to Skoden’s Billy-Joe Tuccaro.
