The Burnaby Oakeys are the new midget B girls' softball champions.
The under-18 rep team avenged its only loss of the round robin, knocking off the Langley Extreme twice in the championship round, including an 11-9 victory in the gold-medal final in Cordova Bay on July 21.
Burnaby also beat Langley 7-4 with the help of a bases-loaded strikeout in the bottom of the seventh inning by Olivia Pagnottaro to move on to the final four. The Oakeys then mercied host Cordova Bay 11-4 to advance to the final.
"It's a team we kind of built and we just all gelled," said Oakeys coach Curtis Holm.
Trailing 4-0 after the first inning of the final, Avery Hutton smacked a bases-loaded triple to tie the game 5-5 after two innings.
Burnaby fell behind by two runs but rallied with six more runs in the sixth, when Kaela Ponte brought home the game-winning runs with a clutch RBI.
In the final inning, with two out and Langley runners on first and third, Oakeys catcher Jenna Holm rifled the ball to Ponte at second base for the game-winning out.
"It was a perfect throw and perfect timing, and ended the game in perfect fashion," said Holm.
"(Jenna) looked up and checked (the runner at third), and she knew she had her."
Two weeks earlier, Burnaby won a tournament in Everett, Washington that set the stage for the upcoming provincials.
"We really got hot at the right time," Holm said, of the Oakeys, including Madison Arrotta, Haley Dore, Marcela Zuniga, Madison Rogerson, Bailey Mehan, Hayley Miller, Gabrielle Williams, Jamie Ursel and Amane Halicki.
