Fruitvale’s Ella Matteucci led the Team BC women’s baseball team to a bronze medal finish at the Canadian Baseball championship in Saguenay, Quebec on Sunday with an 8-2 win over Ontario 2.
Team BC had mixed results in the round robin after opening up with a decisive 12-2 victory over Ontario 2, they would drop a 9-5 decision to Ontario one on Friday. Team BC would beat Quebec 2, 6-5, later that day, before falling to Quebec 1 on Saturday 6-3.
In Sunday’s bronze medal match against Quebec 2, with the score tied 2-2, Stephanie Caron’s fifth inning single scored two runs for Team BC to put them into a lead they would not relinquish. Matteucci would come up after Caron and drive in one of her two runs in the game to make it 5-2, and the BC squad would add three insurance runs in the bottom of the sixth for the decisive win, and a repeat of last year’s bronze medal finish.
Matteucci was the top BC batter hitting .400 while going 8-for-20, with three doubles, a triple, and six RBIs. In Sunday’s final, Ontario 1 captured the championship with a 3-1 victory over Quebec 1.
Girls U16 Nationals:
Results at the National Baseball championship in Saguenay did not go as well for Fruitvale’s Alison Schroder and the Girls U16 Team BC.
Schroder and the U16 girls jumped out to a good start with a 15-6 victory over Quebec 2 on Thursday, but would fall in Friday’s match to Ontario 14-4 and Manitoba on Saturday 11-1.
The 1-and-2 record was not good enough for a berth into the playoffs and the 13-year-old Schroder and the rest of Team BC had to be content with playing for fifth position Sunday night, but the score was unavailable. Ontario will play Quebec in the final, and Manitoba will take on Alberta in the bronze medal game.
Schroder will join the Team B.C.'s Girls U14 team in Saskatchewan later this week to play for the Western Canadian Baseball title.