By Robb Fenton
The Lloydminster Servus A Rebels saved the best for last.
After a great season, the Rebels capped it off with a shutout victory in the provincial championship game, earning a 2-0 win over the Calgary Kaizen to become the 2010 Alberta provincial softball champions.
“It’s so exciting, just the fact we won provincials is amazing,” said Madison Clarke, who threw a complete game shutout in the finals said.
The Rebels scored their runs early in the game and didn’t allow the Kaizen to string any hits together as the Clarke was nearly unhittable and the defence stepped up when they were called upon.
Entering the tournament, the pressure was on the Rebels as the host team and the favourites, but it didn’t stop them from playing their best ball of the season.
“We set that goal from the start and I think everyone looked at us as the favourites, so there’s that pressure of those expectations. It’s not always easy, but the girls were as good as we could have possible hoped. It’s just great,” Rebels head coach Brett Harvie said.
Harvie admitted there was a bit of pressure on his team as they had such a strong season and a lot of teams were looking to them as the number one team in the tournament.
He said his girls didn’t let that bother them and they rose to the occasion during the weekend.
“It’s one thing to go in and win, but when everyone is expecting you to win, every game you play you get the opposition’s best lineup, their best pitcher, those other teams rise every time you play them. It’s tough, but we deserved to win,” he said.
While the offence did enough all weekend, both Harvie and Clarke felt the pitching was what won them the championship. Each Rebel pitcher who took the mound threw a great game and gave the team a chance to win.
“The pitching was great. We have a really strong team and pitching is just one factor of that strong team,” Clarke, who picked up wins in both the semi-finals and finals said.
“We got great pitching performances in all six games and anytime you get that you can win a lot of ball games. Madison threw both playoff games for us and threw fantastic. She was throwing really hard and throwing a lot of strikes,” Harvie added.
“It was as good of a performance as you can ask. Our other two pitchers, they threw in the round robin, they won us our games. Pitching was definitely the strong point.”
The Rebels will now focus their sights on Westerns, which take place Aug. 5 to 8 in Strathmore.
“We’re very excited. I think for all the girls this will be their first post-provincial experience, so they’re all very thrilled. For half (the players), two years in a row they finished second in provincials, they lost in the finals, so there’s a lot of relief to win that last one,” Harvie explained.  “It’s great, we’re all thrilled and hopefully we can go there and have a good showing and bring back some more hardware.”
Clarke, with a big smile said heading to Strathmore is going to be a great experience.
“It’s amazingly exciting and I just hope we do well in Westerns,” she said.