The Beacon Hill and Layritz little leagues are gearing up to represent Canada at the Softball World Series Championships in August.
Beacon Hill, who swept the visiting Saskatchewan in the junior softball championship, will compete at the Junior Softball World Series in Kirkland, Washington from Aug. 2-8.
In pool A, Beacon Hill (girls 13-14 years old) will play the host team Bellevue Junior League, Norzagaray, Bulacan from the Philippines and two teams from central and southeast U.S. that are yet to be determined.
“It's been a long-term goal for them, so they're just excited to get down here and play,” said team manager Bill Hawkins, noting 13 girls will be competing this year.“We prepare for the game and just go out and play one pitch, one inning at a time and play hard. Nothing different from what we've done all year.”
Following the juniors, the Layritz Little League (girls 11-12 years old), who defeated the Beacon Hill Little League 7-3 last week, will represent the country in Portland for the Little League Softball World Series from Aug. 13-19.
“We're very excited, very excited for the girls because they worked so hard,” said team manager Alan Callander. “On the field there were tears of joys and tears of sadness.”
In their bracket, the girls will face the ILLAM Little League from Makati City in the Philippines, the Central Iowa Little League and two teams from the U.S., that are yet to be determined as well.
“We're up against some pretty tough competition,” Callander said. “Our whole goal was to get there and we did that. We made a promise to go down there and have fun and play time will be spread out a bit more.”
Callander said the team is deep in pitching and has strong catchers.
“I think we're going to focus on our batting a bit, the girls have got their in-fielding down, but I think for batting, just getting used to a little bit faster pitching,” he said, noting they're taking 14 girls and three coaches to the world series.