Vikings enter softball season with high hopes

The Vincent Massey Vikings entered last softball season with high expectations for a young team.

Despite having no seniors on the roster, they achieved their goal of reaching the provincial final. Of course, the bar is higher this year as the Vikings chase their first gold medal since 2007.

“That was the goal last year, just to get to that game. Building on it this year, because we have pretty much the same group,” said Grade 12 pitcher Brynna Andrew, ahead of today’s season opener against the Neelin Spartans.

Andrew is one of four pitchers on the squad, playing one more high school season with seniors Macey McIvor and Kendra Grift, with whom she’ll also play under-19 Westman Magic AAA ball this summer.

U17 Magic pitchers Quinn Twordik and Jayce Whiteside will likely see plenty of action for Massey, with a fourth arm joining the group in freshman Quincy Haggarty.

“We have different strengths. We all just build on each other,” Andrew said. “Jayce has a good change-up and can get more groundouts and fly outs, where I feel like Quinn has more strikeouts.”

The Vikings proved they could beat teams in multiple ways last year, lighting it up offensively with at least 11 runs in every city league game before thumping the Major Pratt Trojans 28-0 in their interzone game.

But they also handled narrow defensive battles well, edging the Morden Thunder 1-0 to open provincials in Stonewall.

The Vikings beat the Virden Golden Bears 4-0 in the quarterfinals and the host Rams 8-5 in the semifinals.

However, they ran into the St-Joachim/Real-Berard co-op team featuring a bunch of Eastman AAA players in the final, falling 11-3.

“We just got tired and we knew they were going to be really good, so we got a little down on ourselves, had trouble finding the bats and it was that kind of game,” said shortstop Kendra Grift.

While Grift knows it’s her last shot at a high school title, she’s not putting too much pressure on herself or her team. She’s heading to Dakota College at Bottineau to play hockey next year, and has just one goal for her last few months on the diamond.

“Have fun, honestly,” Grift said. “I’m still working on my swing and throwing, but being the best teammate I can possibly be.

“It makes it easier, I’m not as worried to make an error. I let it go and keep playing for the next pitch. It’s a hard sport if you get in your head.”

For senior first baseman Macey McIvor, this year isn’t the end. She just committed to the University of Saskatoon softball team on Sunday and will play in the Western Collegiate Softball Association this fall.

She said the past year has been big for her development, as she competed in three American tournaments — in Florida, Las Vegas and Sioux Falls, S.D. — with the Triple Crown Bulldogs U18 girls.

“It showed how ball in the States is a lot different,” McIvor said.

“We were playing girls who are committed … to DI schools and they were just hitting bombs left and right. They’re on another level down there, but it was so much fun to play against them.

“I learned that defence is super important. They made no errors. If we made little errors, they were on top of that. They were stealing bases off of every little error we made.”

The season will start with a little more margin for error, but it’ll tighten up come provincials.

This year, league games against Crocus Plains are being played as exhibition games with a five-run-per-inning limit, so the winner of Massey and Neelin’s city final on May 19 will play an interzone game, with the winner heading to Pilot Mound for provincials on June 5-6.

“We’re super excited for this opportunity,” McIvor said. “It’s pretty much the same group of girls, so we’re that much hungrier to win.”

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com