Altona Angels Softball Club hosts first tournament in 12 years

Altona Angels Softball club will host 16 teams for this weekend's Tiger Hills Softball League U13 Tournament.

"That includes teams coming from as far away as Glenboro, Portage, the Winkler-Morden-Carmen area and in between," said Rachel Wahl, Angels club coordinator. "There should be hundreds of extra people in town to watch the girls play this weekend."

The tourney begins with games on the evening of Friday, June 21st and continues all day Saturday, June 22nd.

The last tournament on record hosted by the Altona Angel softball group took place in 2012. 

"For various reasons," said Wahl. "It's more complicated to host a tournament with having to divide it one half of town to the other half of town. But we have a group right now of parents and volunteers who are dedicated and willing to go through that work. It looks like it's going to be a great event!"

 

From left: Rhyla Hildebrand, Angels player; Rachel Wahl, club coordinator; Dayna Wahl, coach

For players like Rhyla Hildebrand, this is a new experience.  

"The fact that we get to play at home, on our school diamonds, will be really cool. We haven't been able to play at Parkside until now because our diamond wasn't very good and had a whole bunch of grass all around it. Now we’ve fixed it up and it looks pretty good."

Dayna Wahl, a former player and now coach, echoes that sentiment.

"I have never played in a tournament at home, so it's great to see that coming in. I hope that can continue."

The players at this level of softball are classified as 'single-A' explained Rachel.

"More of a developmental but becoming more competitive age group. We welcome girls into the program even if they haven't played ball before. But by this point in the year, most of them have really improved and quite a few of the girls in this whole group are also playing AA softball - a higher level of competition - while joining their team for their single-A Tournament."

Dayna says she loves working with this age group.

"I get to teach them all in multiple different sports, so it's very cool to see how they can improve in different areas and it's very fun watching them play. They are very encouraging to each other. They have a great teamwork and great team mindset, so it's really great to watch."

The event will include the Two Bros food truck from Morden, located on the West Park grounds, a canteen at W.C. Miller as well as washroom facilities.

In the event of rain delays, the tournament will wind up on Sunday, June 23rd.


~With files from Candace Derksen~