A huge
congrats to the London Lightning Intermediates who competed this past weekend
in the Provincial Championships, with an impressive total of 41 runs scored over
6 games and having only given up a total of 3 runs for the weekend!
Game 1 vs Hagersville 9-0 was a win, the Lightning offence exploded to start provincials posting a 13-hit attack featured by home runs by Madi, Hawk and Kenzie. Tana pitched to 2 batters over the minimum over the 5-inning mercy with a 5 IP, 0 Hits, 2 BBs, and 0 ER with 8 Ks. The defence was perfect and no errors.
The weekend continued in this fashion, with 7-1 win over Brampton, 13-0 win over Hamilton and in final game of Round Robin Play, the 3-0 Lightning were up against the 3-0 and 2 Time Defending Provincial Champion, Milverton Jutzi.
Offensively Lightning tallied 5 of their total 8 hits in the first inning on route to posting an early 3-0 lead highlighted by Hawks 2 RBI single. Defence was the name of this game and Kimmy at 3rd lead the way with 5 put outs, Laura had 4 and Katie, Madi, Sam and Hawk all contributed 2 put outs. Needless to say, defence had a perfect game and made NO errors.
You don't become the 2-time Defending Provincial Champs by luck and to no one's surprise in the semi-final game Milverton Jutzi were back to avenge their earlier loss to the Lightning by defeating Owen Sound and Bramalea by convincing scores. Revenge was something the Lightning squad felt they still owed Milverton and they jumped out to a 1-0 lead after 2, piled on 5 more runs in the 4th and finished off the defending champs 7-0 pushing across the final run in the 5-inning mercy victory. Offensively it was a total team effort as 8 of the 9 Lightning batters all had at least one hit contributing to the 13-hit explosion. Tana highlighted the offence going 3-3 with a triple. On the pitching front Tana went 5 IP, 2 Hits, 1 BB, O ERs with 2 Ks. The defence again was the key highlighted by Sam's 3 put outs in RF and a total team commitment to defence again resulting in an error free game and 7-0 win for Lightning!
Lightning vs. Chepstow 2-1 Win!
Chepstow are a veteran squad who in their prime competed and won several Tier 1 Intermediate titles. After a 2 plus year layoff from competing at Provincials the ladies from Chepstow were back to see if they still had what it takes to win a Provincial championship!
The score is a perfect indication of this game, a close game, highlighted by great defence, pitching and excellent sportsmanship. The younger Lightning squad jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning thanks to a 2-run triple from Crash. Over the whole 7 innings the Lightning team would generate a total of 8 hits but would only score those 2 first inning runs.
Laura pitched the first 5 innings scattering 5 hits, 0 BBs, 2 Ks and 1 ER over the first 5 innings. Tana came in to pitch the final two innings giving up 1 hit, 0 BBs, 0 ERs and struck out all three batters in the 7th inning to preserve the win. Pitching and defence win championships and this was another perfectly played game defensively. The girls wanted this title, they executed near flawlessly on offence and on defence all weekend and are very well deserving Ontario Intermediate Provincial CHAMPIONS!
Go Lightning!