A true mark of the summer is the start of baseball and softball provincials. While most tournaments won't get going until the middle of July, two softball tournaments taking place this weekend have local teams in action in both Macklin and Regina.
23 teams are in Macklin for this weekend's U11 'B' North tournament, one of four going on around the province. Three diamonds will be home to 37 games across four pools and the four local teams in attendance will be in action early.
The host Macklin Lakers are playing the Unity Panthers at 8:00 AM on Strathcona Diamond to start the tournament, and then a half hour later the Rosetown Angels play the TCA Twisters on Trapper Diamond while the Biggar Nationals line up against the Saskatoon Hustler Heat on Nate's Diamond. Once the first game on Strathcona is complete, the Elrose Aces take the field against the Saskatoon Lasers Crushers at 9:45 AM.
Each of those teams have a second game on Friday as Rosetown faces Watrous at 3:00 PM on Strathcona, and then two games at 4:30 PM sees Biggar playing Langham on Trapper, while Unity takes on Humboldt from Nate's.
At 4:45 Elrose will play Muenster before the opening ceremonies at 6:15, the host Lakers taking the field against the Saskatoon Phantoms Spirit for one of three games to end the first day.
After Saturday's schedule (posted above) the top two teams in each pool will advance to the championship round beginning Sunday morning.
The quarterfinals will take place on Strathcona and Trapper between 8:00-10:00 AM, the semi-finals running at 12:30, and then at 2:30 PM the bronze medal game will be played on Trapper while the gold medal game goes down on Strathcona.
The only other provincial tournaments on this weekend are taking place in Regina. Both U17 and U19 'A' provincials are being played, but the U19 'C' tournament also starts up tonight with Macklin and Rosetown as two of four total teams.
Macklin and Rosetown are actually set for a head-to-head matchup tonight at 6:30 after the Regina Revenge and Moosomin Predators play at 4:00. The schedule continues Saturday at 10:30 AM with Rosetown facing Moosomin, Macklin taking on Regina afterwards at 1:00, the round robin continuing after that with Macklin playing again at 4:00 and Rosetown returning to the diamond at 6:30.
However the standings shake out, the first game of the day at 8:30 will pit second place against third place, sending the winner into the gold medal game at 12:30 against the first-place finishers.
Check out the latest edition of the OSY Rentals Ball Report below for a look at all of the local provincial competitors set to take the field in 2025.