Fast pitch team does well in Spokane
<p>The Northwest Athletics second-place winners at the Spokane Fourth of July Shootout Fastpitch tournament, back row from left Samantha Kalar (Rathdrum), Baylee Metcalf (Rathdrum), Trinity Golder (BF), Bethany Holoce (Rathdrum), Kadi Bateman (BF), and Sydney Watt (BF). Front row from left, Madison Metcalf (Rathdrum), Jadyn Bennett (BF), Hannah Daniels (Rathdrum), Jorryn Bennett (BF), and Mikayla Olson (Rathdrum).</p>
The Northwest Athletics, a fast pitch softball team of five girls from Bonners Ferry and six girls from Rathdrum, took second place in the Spokane Fourth of July Shootout tournament.
Eight softball teams in all from Montana, Washington and Idaho played in the three-day softball tournament.
The A’s will play in the Idaho State tournament in Coeur d’ Alene Saturday, July 9 and Sunday, July 10.
The girls ages 8 through 11 played in the sun and heat battling tough competition from the Northwest region.
The two small towns brought their girls together to play in last weekends tournament that started well Saturday with a win over Bitteroot, Mont., Sparks team with a score of 9 to 3.
Sunday’s pool play left the girls with two losses. The A’s lost their first game to the Spokane Cougars with a score of 8 to 5. The A’s lost the second game to the Coeur d’ Alene Wildfire with a heartbreaking score of 12 to 1.
Sunday’s losses in pool play put the A’s up against Sundays winning teams making fora tough competition in Monday’s tournament play.
The A’s first played Montana’s Fury in single elimination and beat them with a score of 9 to 3.
That put the A’s against the Lakesiders from Nine Mile Falls, Wash., for their second game and the A’s shut them out with a score of 3 to 0. With this win the A’s qualified for second place for the tournament and a chance to play Coeur’ d’ Alene’s Crash for the championship.
In the final and third game on Monday the A’s fell short but played a good game but lost with a score of 16 to 7.
The Crash from Coeur d’ Alene will play at the state tournament and the A’s have another chance at the first place trophy.