U13 Heat ready to contend for Canadians berth this weekend in Sherwood Park

By Lethbridge Herald on July 20, 2023.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

The Lethbridge U13 Heat softball team are gearing up to compete for a berth in Canadians at the 2023 Little League Softball Alberta Divisional Tournament this weekend in Sherwood Park.

“You know we’ve had some really good games,” said Kale Norsworthy, Heat head coach.

“(We have had) ups and downs all year. But this group has made some pretty big strides from where they started and where they are now. We’ve been doing a lot of practicing over the last couple weeks. We went in to provincials for Alberta Softball and we came up against a pretty tough team and we couldn’t move on there. But, you know, we’ve put in some good hard work here and we’ll put our best foot forward in (Sherwood Park).”

Norsworthy thinks the team has prepared rgood for the tournament over the last three weeks.

“We’ve ran three practices a week, he said.

“I think the girls are going to be ready. We’ll come down to pitching, that’s what happens in the softball world. If we can throw strikes I think we have a very good chance.”

“We can hit with teams,” said Norsworthy.

“There’ll be a strong team, St. Albert, they went to the Little League World Series last year. So they’ll more than likely be a very strong team. But we’ll rely on our pitching and our defence for sure .”

Norsworthy says the bar will definitely be raised.

“It’s definitely stiffer competition,” he said.

“There’ll be better pitching of course (and) probably better defence than what we’re used to in sort of the SASS (Southern Alberta Softball Series). But, like I said, I’m fairly confident in our team we can compete there for sure.”

Lethbridge will open up against St. Albert at noon tomorrow, followed by a game with Calgary at 2:30 p.m..

The final will go Sunday starting at 10 a.m.

The games will be available on gc.com or  on the Game Changer app.

The Heat had a little over .600 winning percentage playing in the SASS this season against teams from  Medicine Hat, Calgary and Brooks/Drumheller.

The winner will go to Victoria for Canadians next week.