On the weekend of June 6–8, Cache Creek Minor Softball held its first home tournament in several years.
The Desert Heat U-13 Co-ed tournament definitely lived up to its name, with temperatures reaching as high as 37 C over the weekend. Round robin play started on Friday night and ended Saturday afternoon, and the Cache Creek Chaos boys’ and girls’ teams both finished with records of two wins and one loss.
The girls started their tournament with a 15-10 win over one of the four Merritt teams invited to the tournament. Their next game was with another one of the visiting teams from Merritt, and that ended with another win, this time by a score of 10-7. Their last round robin game was against Vernon Vortex, which ended in a 9-6 loss to Vernon.
The boys’ weekend started with a win against Merritt Mr. Mike’s, with a final score of 12-0. The next game was against 100 Mile House, and that ended with another win, by a score of 12-9. The last game of Saturday, which took place in the heat of the day, was a tough 17-0 loss to Merritt.
After round robin play, the girls finished in third place and the boys in fourth.
On Sunday morning the playoff round started. The girls played Merritt once again and defeated them 13-3, which moved them into the semifinal round. The boys unfortunately had a tough game, and lost their playoff game to 100 Mile House, which ended their tournament. Even though they lost this game, they were fantastic co-hosts, and represented the league with fair play and sportsmanship.
When the semifinals started the girls met up with the Merritt Maniacs. They came out slugging and knocked off Merritt 15-4, which moved them into the gold medal game against their rivals, the Vernon Vortex.
This was the third meeting of the season between these two teams. Cache Creek played an amazing game — maybe even one of their best of the season — and defeated Vernon 10-8 to capture gold.
The tournament was very successful, and is definitely something that can be built on for the upcoming seasons. A committee had organized a dance at the Cache Creek Community Hall for the participating players and their siblings, and it was a great opportunity for all the players to get together off the field.
So many people made it such a success that all players, coaches, and parents enjoyed it. The umpiring crew did an outstanding job, and the games went so smoothly thanks to the Blue Crew. The tournament committee worked hard on this tournament for weeks leading up to the event, with the help of many parent volunteers.
So many local businesses sponsored this event in so many ways. One of them was Desert Hills Ranch, which offered one free ice cream to all participating players.
Last but not least, there are the amazing ball players who had to endure the elements of the Ashcroft heat: not an easy thing to do, but they did it. A special shout out to our own two Cache Creek Chaos teams who, even though they grew up in a desert, still fought through the heat and played well while doing so.
