Maymont's Brayden Harris and his Warman Panthers teammates captured a silver medal at last weekend's U14 Western Canadian Softball Championship in Prince Albert.
They opened the tournament Friday morning against a familiar rival in the Saskatoon Eagles, whom the Panthers beat in the Saskatchewan Provincial Championships. The Panthers had two throwing errors that cost them five runs and they weren't able to recover, losing 9-2.
Friday afternoon they faced Ontario and found themselves down 7-2 going to the bottom of the seventh inning, but their bats came alive and they rallied to win 8-7. The win got the Panthers on a roll as they got big victories over British Columbia, 10-3, and Manitoba, 8-0, Saturday.
Sunday afternoon was their final round robin game against the host Prince Albert Astros, with the winner claiming first place and the loser being bumped to third heading in to the playoffs.
The game was tied 1-1 going into the fifth inning when the Astros took a big lead and went on to win 10-1. This set up a Panthers first round playoff match up against Ontario. The loser would go home and the winner would move on to the semi-final.
The Panthers sparked a two out rally in the bottom of the first, scoring four runs and they never looked back, winning 10-3 and advancing to Monday morning's semi-final where they would once again face Saskatoon.
Warman continued to swing hot bats and beat Saskatoon 8-1, sending them into the gold medal game an hour later against Prince Albert, where the Astros continued their dominance and forced the Panthers to settle for silver. Warman's team was made up of mostly local boys, but also had one player from Langham, one from Hague and two pickups for Westerns from Delisle.
