For the first time since anyone can remember when, a team from the NWT has gone to Alberta and won a provincial title in softball.
And the Yellowknife Wolverines can thank Keira and Danika Coakwell for helping them do it.
The sisters from Hay River were part of the victorious side which claimed victory in the Softball Alberta U19 girls championship on Sunday in Blackfalds, Alta. The girls defeated the Red Deer Rage in the final, 7-6, to cap off what will most likely be the first and only time the Wolverines travel to play this season.
Heather Coakwell, the siblings’ mother, said the Wolverines needed a bit of assistance filling out the roster and called looking for some help.
“They know Keira and asked if she’d be interested in making the trip,” she said. “We were going to drive down and they called back and asked if Danika wanted to come as well — they knew she also played.”
It wasn’t the first time Keira Coakwell has travelled as a member of the Wolverines to a tournament, but she said the nerves were still there before taking the field for the opening game on July 7.
“I thought it was going to be top-tier and we would get destroyed, but at least we’ll have fun,” she said. “After that first game, I thought we would have a fighting chance and maybe we’d win something.”
The Wolverines played in the D division of the championships and started off against the Fort Saskatchewan Sliders, a game they lost by a score of 5-3, but there were plenty of chances for the ladies to come out on top, said coach Greg Skauge.
“We played really well, but we stranded about 10 runners on base,” he said. “It was the first time they had been together as a team and their first time playing against girls. They’re all split up in house league (in Yellowknife) and they’re playing with and against the boys.”
But that defeat was to be the only blemish on the Wolverines’ scorecard and they kept on winning all the way to the playoff round. Their next three wins came courtesy of the mercy rule, where a team has a lead of at least seven runs or more after the fifth inning.
Danika Coakwell said those nerves started to disappear as the games rolled on.
“I thought it would be scarier,” she said. “It was definitely a lot different than I thought it would be.”
The Wolverines ended up finishing high enough to qualify for the playoffs, which were held under the Page format. That means the first and second-place teams each have two chances to make it to the final. The Wolverines would meet Fort Saskatchewan again in the first quarter-final on Sunday morning and would win it to advance directly to the final later in the afternoon.
Red Deer won the third vs. fourth place game to advance to the semifinal against Fort Saskatchewan, which they would also win to move into the final.
Under normal circumstances, the Wolverines would’ve had home field advantage by virtue of being the higher-ranked team, but that wasn’t the case.
Skauge said he didn’t understand the decision at all, but it wasn’t the end of the world.
“We were told that if both teams were undefeated in the playoffs, it would go to a coin toss,” he said. “You can’t worry about that because it gave us a chance to get on the bats first and put the pressure on (Red Deer).”
And the pressure was firmly applied the first half of the game as the Wolverines built up a 7-0 lead by the fourth inning. Keira Coakwell snocked two inside-the-park home runs to help the cause.
“I just told myself I was going to hit the ball far,” she said. “In the first game, I struck out every at-bat and I wasn’t going to do that again. I told myself to get on base.”
But the Wolverines didn’t do themselves any favours as they allowed the Rage to slowly creep back into the contest and by the time the bottom of the seventh inning rolled around, it was 7-5. The Rage got one across in the inning to make it 7-6 and then had runners on first and second base with nobody out. But the standard strikeout-fly out-ground out all in a row was enough to close it out and give the Wolverines the win.
While the team celebrated — and probably breathed a huge sigh of relief — it was a quick turnaround for the Coakwells. After all, they had work Monday morning.
”We celebrated, went to the water park for a bit and then drove home,” said Keira.