After a convincing tournament win, Pat Tetrault's Braves won the Zone 13 MHSAA girls softball championship and will be heading to provincials in Stonewall at the end of May.
"We've had the luxury of having a pretty good team this season," Tetrault says with a proud smile. "Girls have been working hard since early April. They came in, got to work hitting balls, getting ready for the short high school season. We had a pretty good showing at the Zone 13 tournament."
Before detailing the tournament, Tetrault spoke about the teams buy-in level and how the group has gelled this year. "It's been a challenge at times because the high school level is a mix of girls that have played AAA, some that have played local ball or AA. Each girl has a different background and experience when it comes to ball. Bringing them together, trying to improve on their skills, getting them on the same page is something we've worked on. I think the girls have bought into their roles on the team and it's made for a pretty exciting run."
Being an experienced coach, Tetrault says there's a balance between coaches coaching and experienced players using their voice. "It's all to an extent. How they approach the game, come early to practice, come early to games, the reps they do, the warmups they do, how you throw, why you throw it, all that kind of jazz, we lean on our older players. Throughout the game, strategy comes from the coaches to the players. When it comes down to it and the game gets tough, you're in those moments when you need someone to step up, it's always nice to have those experienced players that have been through the grind. The ones that haven't can recognize how to deal with situations and gives them confidence to come together to pull out victories. We have a great core of experienced players that we can lean on and it makes it for a very exciting group."
That group brought their best for when they needed it, according to Tetrault. "We had a couple of exhibition games against Landmark and SRSS, we knew they'd be a good team. Landmark has one of the best pitchers in Manitoba with Kelsey (Warkentine), so we knew she'd be tough to hit and she did a great job but our bats were pretty strong. Our girls managed to dig deep, get some hits and maybe take some of the wind out of their sails. We took advantage and we were successful getting the bat on the ball, created some runs and one thing led to the next and we were up quite a bit. SRSS is always a strong team and again, I think our experience helped, we used that to be victorious. Our girls played awesome."
With that tournament win, Tetrault says the group being viewed as underdogs suits them just fine going forward. "For our little high school, we're just over 200 students between the two high schools. Being able to compete and win the Zone 13 against bigger schools is always nice. Having the roster that we have, going into provincials with the type of team we have, our goal is to not only compete but compete for a medal. To do that with the little high school that we have, if we can manage to pull off a top three or go for the gold, that would be a pretty cool accomplishment for our school. Not saying it's going to be easy, obviously there are a bunch of good schools that have talent, but we're looking forward to competing and maybe bringing home a banner."
The thought of coming back from provincials with a banner gives Tetrault goosebumps and he believes his team has what it takes to turn that dream into a reality. "It would be pretty amazing. The fact our school has won the Zones for three out of four years, to go into provincials and compete, it matters. In La Broqueire, it's been traditionally a hardball community, but these days, softball is really taking off. We're being recognized by people and having the older guys that used to play fastball in La Broqueire saying it's amazing we have a program. Not just playing but we're competing against the best. That's for us and for me. For the girls, the experience of getting to play competitive ball, from the AAA girls to the girls that play local ball, having that experience where you're going up against the best pitching or hitting in the province, you might not see that at A or AA, it's just a fun environment to be in. The amount of stuff they're learning and experiencing, they'll remember it for the rest of their lives."
Provincials are set for the end of May in Stonewall.
Team Photo:
Back row, left to right
Coach Joel Maynard, Head Coach Pat Tetrault
Middle row, left to right
Chloe Carriere, Emilie Nadeau, Sarah Gauthier, Brynn Maynard, Pascal Kihn, Annabelle Tetrault, Kaylie Tetrault, Coach Dominique Tetrault, Coach Al Beauchamp
Front row, left to right
Joelle Normandeau, Lola Kihn, Jaymee Poiron-Harel, Emilie Carriere
Missing from the photo
Coach Russ Kihn and Chloe Maynard