The Estevan Rocket Sales Rockettes wrapped up a perfect season by winning the provincial peewee B softball championship Sunday in Regina.
After mulling over whether to enter the B or C tournament, the Rockettes went B and mercied every team they played, including a 9-2 six-inning victory over the Martensville Magic in the final.
"That really surprised us. We played some good teams. It took a team effort on our part to do that," said head coach Carmon Lindquist.
"We thought it would be nice to bring a provincial title home even if it was in C. To be able to do that in B is even sweeter."
Co-coach Shauna Earl credited "good defence and getting on the bats, along with strong pitching from Tess Lindquist and Taylor Marcotte, and stellar backcatching from Macy Earl as key reasons for the squad's success.
The Rockettes were never challenged in their three round-robin games in the 16-team tournament.
They started out with a 16-0 whitewashing of the Saskatoon Falcons that lasted just three innings.
The second game was a 8-0 blanking of the Lumsden Cubs in five innings and they followed that up with a 19-7 win over the Regina Lazers, also in five innings.
Estevan was scored on in only one inning for the whole round-robin, although the Lazers scored seven runs in that inning.
Estevan faced the defending provincial champion Southey Eagles in their quarter-final and handled them with ease in a 17-4 shellacking.
Next up were the Saskatoon Hustlers in the semi. They gave the Rockettes their toughest game of the weekend, but still fell 12-5.
"We slowly pulled away from them. Tess was not allowing them to get anything going. We were chipping away, two runs here, three runs there," said Lindquist.
"Tess absolutely controlled the game for us. When we did get some runners on base, we were throwing them out on base, finding a way to get those outs. Once we got on base, it was just a matter of strong running and hitting," he added.
The teams were blessed with warm, sunny weather all weekend, until the final, when Estevan and Martensville were caught in the middle of the massive hail storm that pounded Regina Sunday night.
Lindquist said consistency at the plate, not power, was what led to the tournament victory.
"For the most part, we played fairly consistent ball. We were looking at scoring in every inning and putting people on base. We only had three really big innings all weekend."
The Rockettes went undefeated this year after being formed in late May. They also won a 16-team tournament in Moose Jaw and another in Carlyle.
It is believed to be the first provincial championship for Estevan Girls' Softball in recent memory.
Six Rockette players will move on to bantam next year.
