A group of local slo-pitch players will be heading to Kamloops, B.C., next week to compete at the 2015 Kamloops National Championship slo-pitch tournament.
The Prairie Pleasers, a team made up of 14 local ball players as well as one player from Regina, qualified for the 2015 National tournament last August and will be the only team from Saskatchewan travelling to Kamloops after deciding as a whole to attend the B.C. tournament as opposed to the National championship tournament in St. John’s, Newfoundland. “We had an option to go to Newfoundland or Kamloops and we chose to go to Kamloops,” said Clorice Kuzek, one of the six competitive female ball players on the Prairie Pleasers, adding that one of the reasons they chose Kamloops was because it was part of a new series. “It’s (the tournament) a new thing called the signature series that involves all of the Western provinces, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.
“There are 19 teams in the tournament in our division and they have levels ‘C’, ‘D’ and ‘E’ there that weekend and we’ve entered into the ‘D’ division.”
Kuzek, who has been playing in National tournaments for over 15 years, believes that the Prairie Pleasers should do well at the tournament at the end of the month simply due to the make-up of the team. “Our age range is from 24 years old to 47,” offered Kuzek, continuing, “We have lots of experience on this team. MacKenzie Unyi and I, we actually played in our first Nationals when we were 16-years-old and now we’re in our 30’s and have a lot of experience. We also have people who are new to the Nationals, but overall we should be fine.
“It’s a very good team, a very fun crowd to be with and I couldn’t think of a better group of people to be going to Nationals with.”
Kuzek says the tournament, which takes place from July 31 and runs until August 3, starts with a round-robin; something that is more important in slo-pitch than other sports due to the advantage a high ranking after the completion of the round-robin has. “It’s very important to finish in the top portion of your pool because then you’re guaranteed a double life into the playoffs which is key because you may have a bad game,” mentioned Kuzek, meaning a double life allows you to lose once in the playoff side and still compete for the championship. “If you finish lower in round-robin then you won’t have that double life and you’ll be finished if you lose and we would much rather avoid a single elimination playoff round.”
The Prairie Pleasers open the 2015 Kamloops National Tournament up at 9:00a.m.Pacific time against Rage (Edmonton, Alberta). They’ll then take on Hot Mess (Coquitlam, B.C.) at 1:30p.m. on Friday, July 31 before rounding out round-robin play on Saturday, August 1 with a pair of games, one against the Outlaws (Edmonton, Alberta) at 1:30p.m. and the other against Team Goodwood (Vernon, B.C.) at 3:00pm.
