GeeGees win silver at Provincials

from Andrea Nelson

The uOttawa GeeGees Women's fastball team headed to St. Catharine's this past weekend to battle against the seven other teams in the OIWFA for Provincial gold.

In their first game they faced Brock, a team they faced only a couple of weekends before where they went 2-0 against them.  In this first game of the provincials Baylie Gigolyk took the mound.  She pitched a great game, but both teams were back and forth on offence from the beginning.  Brock scored first early in the game, with the GeeGees catching up, and eventually taking over with a 3-run in the park homerun by Jacqui Timperio to overtake the Badgers 5-4 for the final.

In their second round-robin game, the GeeGees were up against Waterloo, who they had just faced twice the weekend earlier at Nationals.  It was not the most ideal conditions for a day of ball to say the least, with hard rain coming down just before the game, but they managed to get the game in before the worst of it.  Waterloo generated a lot of offence off of Jean Cardona, but Cardona showed her strength under pressure; with the help of her defence none of the Waterloo baserunners crossed the plate.  In the top of the sixth inning Waterloo had runners on second and third with no out, looking to get back the two runs the GeeGees had scored earlier in the game.  Cardona quickly crushed any chance of that by striking out two in a row, and then getting the third to pop up to Taylor Rogalsky at first base to end the inning.  The GeeGees took this second game 2-0.

Due to the persistent rain on Saturday, the GeeGees third round-robin game against Laurier was postponed until the next morning at 10 am.  A win in this game would secure the GeeGees first place finish in their pool, and allow them to advance directly to the semi finals; Baylie Gigolyk started the game in hopes of seeing that through.  Laurier got two runners on in the top of the first, who both came around to score, giving Laurier an early lead.  The GeeGees answered right back however, as Michelle Miller and Taylor Rogalsky both hit on, and Andrea Nelson doubled up the middle to bring them both in.  As the game progressed Laurier had runners on in almost every single inning, however was only able to score two more to make it 4-3.  In the top of the sixth inning a ball was hit by Ottawa to the Laurier second baseman who flipped it to the shortstop to try for a double play.  Unfortunately for the short stop, the Ottawa runner came in hard at second and there was a collision, causing the Ottawa player to be ejected from the game.  Unfortunately for Ottawa, as they have a very small roster of 11, they had no one to fill the open spot, and after much deliberation about what exactly Ottawa was permitted to do with their lineup, the game was called and Ottawa had to forfeit, sending them to play in a do-or-die game against Queen's.  The score at the time of the forfeit was 6-4 for the GeeGees.  
     
Jean Cardona pitched in the game against Queen's, totally dominating their lineup.  The GeeGees on the other hand were able to score a couple of runs early in the game before hitting their stride and scoring five more runs.  Key hits came from all over the order, and opportunities to cash runners in were not missed.  The Gees scored one in the fifth to make it 7-0 and the game was called early on a mercy.

For the GeeGees this meant they were to advance into the semi-finals to play Laurier, and to hopefully get the win they had been so close to earlier that morning. Jean Cardona took the mound again for the GeeGees in her third start that weekend.  Laurier was able to get a two runners aboard early, and with a couple of well-placed hits they came around to score.  Unfortunately for them, after those two runs scored their batters had less and less luck against Cardona and stayed scoreless for the rest of the game.  On the GeeGees side however, their bats only gained momentum as the game went on, with multiple multi-run innings that led to a six-run sixth inning, and another early game with the final score at 12-2.  

This win let the GeeGees advance to the finals, where they met Western for a repeat of the weekend before at Nationals as well as last year at the Provincials.  The game remained scoreless for the first three innings, with strong pitching and defence from both sides.  This changed in the third inning when Western, with two runners on hit a homerun for the first runs of the game.  The GeeGees answered with one run in the fourth as Jean Cardona hit a single to get aboard and with two out Michelle Miller also singled to bring her in.  Two innings later the score was 3-1 for Western, when this time with one baserunner they hit another homerun over the right field wall to make it 5-1.  In the top of the seventh the GeeGees were still trying to push for a comeback, Andrea Nelson getting aboard with a single down the right field line.  Brye Corkum came into run for her and with a single from outfielder Elissa Sivel, Corkum was moved around to third base.  Jacqui Timperio then came up and shot a long fly ball out to left center and Corkum came in to score.  Unfortunately that was all the GeeGees had left in them and Western took the game 5-2.

It was an exceptional season for the GeeGees, only having three recorded losses during the regular season and medalling at both the Nationals and Provincials.  Special congratulations go out to Baylie Gigolyk and Jean Cardona who were named team MVPs and to Jean Cardona again who was named MVP of the gold medal game this past weekend.

The GeeGees also say goodbye to five of their athletes who will be graduating at the end of the year. Taylor Rogalsky, Elissa Sivel, Jacqui Timperio, Elyssa Dobson and Andrea Nelson have all played their last games as GeeGees but fortunately they end their time with Ottawa with a strong team and a pair of silver medals.