10U Lakers come away with SPLASH championship

The Polson Lakers 10U softball team came away with their first tournament win with a dominant 10-4 win over the Great Falls selects on Sunday to take the championship.

Pitcher Shay Duford struck out 13 batters in the championship game, and led the team on the mound all weekend.

"Shay was just unbelievable. She's just a workhorse. She pitched really strong, both mentally and physically," said head coach Tom DiGiallonardo.

The team is made up of Duford, Jessica Bagnell, Kyrie Bitterman, Taylor Davis, Anna DiGiallonardo, Jordyn Evertz, Claudia Hewston, Jaylin Kenney, Martina Marquardt, Amber Quequesah, and Kiley Webber.

Duford struck out the side in the fourth, but had plenty of help from her team's bats, too. They jumped out to a five-run lead in the first inning against Great Falls, despite losing to the same team and pitcher the night before.

"That's a credit to our team, because Great Falls beat us 9-0 Saturday night with the same pitcher," DiGiallonardo said. "The girls were down about having to play Great Falls again, but I told them what happened Saturday didn't matter. It was really nice to see those girls process that mentally and come out ready to play. They were really worried about that 9-0 game."

The team won 15-1 against Ronan Sunday morning before beating Flathead Valley 9-1, after tying them 3-3 on Saturday.

Davis and Quequesah did a great job defensively, DiGiallonardo said, while several girls had great games at the plate during the championship.

Bagnell went 3-for-4 and scored two runs, DiGiallonardo was 2-for-5 with two runs scored, Duford was 2-for-4 with two runs scored, while Quequesah, Marquardt and Davis all scored runs for the team, too.

"We executed the slow rollers really well, we ran the bases really well, and we hit well. It was just a great tournament for us," DiGiallonardo said.