The Durham Lords women’s softball team plays for bronze today at the provincial championships.
They completed a five-run comeback against the Sheridan Bruins yesterday at the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association (OCAA), winning the game by a final score of 6-5. This came after an 8-2 loss to the host St. Clair Saints earlier in the day.
Today they take on the Humber Hawks for third place. This is a repeat of where the Lords landed at the national championships earlier this month.
They finished fourth at the Canadian Collegiate Softball Association (CCSA) national championships, winning three out of six games over the tournament.
The tournament took place Oct. 9-11 with eight university and college level softball teams competing at Babcock Field and Vaso’s Field at the Durham College Oshawa campus.
Durham opened the weekend championships strong with two wins against the Laurier Hawks and Calgary Dinos, then a loss on Saturday against the Humber Hawks. They recovered with a win against the Western Mustangs in the quarterfinal that secured a spot in the semifinals.
Durham lost 3-0 to the St. Clair Saints, then another loss 3-1 to the Laurier Hawks in the bronze medal game. The Lords’ Chelsea Oke received an all-star title.
Second and third-base player Rebecca Sawyer said she had nerves and excitement going into the CCSA championships and she wanted to prove herself.
To prepare for the championships, Sawyer went to the batting cages to practice hitting on her own and otherwise had weekly practice with her team.
For mental preparation, she said coach Jamie Baker wanted the team to believe they were ready and to trust themselves because he trusted them.
Despite the loss in the semifinals, the crowd pushed the team. “It definitely changes the game for sure. You hear the crowd cheering for you and you’re like, I gotta come through,” Sawyer said. “I feel like we just got a lot closer, it was really great to head into OCAAs.”
She said their season overall has been going “great.”
“We’ve kinda gone on an upward trajectory,” Sawyer said. “We’re going into OCAAs with positive energy.”
The Lords finished second in their OCAA regular season with 16 wins and five losses.
This was the first time Durham has hosted the CCSA national championships in almost a decade.
Zachery Ellis, sports information and marketing coordinator, said the college tries to take hosting to “another level.”
“Last time we hosted it was the old dirt field. Now we got the new state of the art turf field, with the new press box and stands,” Ellis said.