Softball Day at the Park is a “Splash”

This year’s Softball Day at the Park took place on Sat June 16 at Pierre Rocque Park in Orleans. Although it was a scorcher of a day – no one was really complaining. In fact it was kind of nice to have the dunk tank on hand to cool off the willing volunteers, coaches and the even more willing players.

As part of the day’s events the 6^th Annual “Slugger Sprinter Thrower” City-Wide Challenge was held. Participants ranging in age from 7-12 competed for their home team of Orleans, Kanata and Stittsville. The boys and girls hit, threw and ran for the challenge and for the enjoyment. Along the way, new personal bests and new competition records were achieved.

All 99 participants performed extremely well and received medals and trophies for their efforts. All in all, five records were broken from the previous years and one record was tied.

There were 3 new “Sprinter” records set in the 180 ft home run race. Taylor Clarke from the mite girls Orleans Cumberland Phone Book team clocked a record time of 9.12 seconds; while, Vincent Giroux from the SG Printing team set the new record for the mite boys division with a run of 9.24 seconds. Sutton McKay from the Algonquin Travel squirt boy’s team, surpassed the old sprinting record by recording the fastest time of the day at 8.63 seconds.

Records were matched and broken in the “Thrower” category. Michael Pilon of the mite boys Zoom 2 Events was the most accurate of the day – hitting a bulls eye to win gold and tying the previous record. Christopher Smith’s whose throw that was just 0.5” away from the target was enough to win gold in the squirt boy’s division. It was Dominik Duvert of the atom Ottawa Police Ass’n and Melissa Watson of squirt girls Zoom 2 Events that set a new SST record with 4.5” and 2.5 “ respectively.

Winners in the “Slugger” category were awesome as well. The atom gold sluggers were Gabryel Leonard of Purple OAFA and Hailey Bradimore of Re/Max Metro City. Brandon Harvey from the Orleans Centrum Subway team and Stefany Raymond from the Irish Green OAFA team won gold in the mite division. In the squirt division, Alexandre Levesque of Hunter Green OAFA and Carolyn Corkery of Orleans Carpet pounded the ball to claim the top slugger awards. Stefany recorded the farthest hit of the day as it reached 153’ 3” into left field.

Click here for a full summary of all of the gold, silver and bronze winners.

The BBQ and the hamburgers prepared by the infamous Lise Beauregard got rave reviews by all. Some said she should charge more, while others just kept eating. Here too broke a record - 6 hamburgers by one person.

The fast ball game that followed was between the two junior teams in the Greater Ottawa Fast Pitch League. The Orleans Gators Jr. Men’s team and the Quyon Flyers Jr. Men team was pretty much of a pitcher’s dual with both teams tied at 0-0 going in to the 6^th inning. Unfortunately for the Gators, a couple of walks and a couple of timely hits that inning put the Flyers up 6-0, and the Gators were unable to rebound back. The game ended 6-0.

Thanks again to all of the volunteers who set up, recorded, measured, announced, photographed, got wet, and who played the music during this years Softball Day at the Park events. Hope to see you all out at the park next year.