The Stonewall Rams have reached the mountaintop of high school softball.
Stonewall defeated the St. Joachim Braves 9-2 last Saturday to capture the 2026 Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association G3 Provincial Softball Championship.
Four Stonewall Rams players earned provincial honours following the Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association provincial softball championship. Pictured from left are provincial all-stars Riley Swanson, Abi Minnie and Kassie Siwak, along with provincial MVP Sierra Slatcher
The victory came after back-to-back years of heartbreaking semifinal losses that resulted in bronze-medal finishes.
“We set our goal before the season at getting into that championship and winning it. We have four Grade 12s on our team, and some of that played a pretty big role. For them to go out as champions, it’s pretty cool,” said Rams coach Curtis Grieve.
Those Grade 12 players include Lucy Hoff, Paige Powroznik, Kassie Siwak and Sierra Slatcher, all of whom were part of the team in previous seasons.
The four led the Rams through both their play and leadership this season as Stonewall finished with a 20-1 record.
The team also went a perfect 5-0 at provincials, earning round-robin victories of 7-1 over the host Pilot Mound Pilots and 11-1 over the Hamiota Huskies. Stonewall then defeated the Prairie Mountain Predators 12-5 in the quarterfinals and the CJS Olympiens 10-0 in the semifinals before topping St. Joachim for the banner.
“I would say our round-robin games on Friday, we played a little bit on the nervous side. We won our games quite handily, but I don’t know if we were quite at the top of our game on Friday,” said Grieve. “Our girls knew where they had to be. They knew what it would take to win on Saturday. We came with a lot of noise and a lot of energy, won our quarterfinal against Prairie Mountain and then took on CJS. CJS was the only team to beat us this year, and we kind of won a dominant one there, 10-0 against them, which put us in a good position for the final and feeling pretty good about ourselves.”
Saturday’s playoff run was led in particular by the Rams’ Grade 11 and 12 players, who drove in a large number of runs over the three playoff games.
Slatcher, who batted over .600 during the tournament, was also a key contributor defensively, recording 36 strikeouts while issuing no walks over 17 innings.
Her performance earned her Provincial MVP honours, while fellow Rams Siwak, Riley Swanson and Abi Minnie were named tournament all-stars.
“We had all the confidence in the world with the lineup we could roll out there,” said Grieve. “We knew that we were able to limit Sierra’s pitch count the first day, and then got a good pitching performance from Peyton Rinn and Kassie in the quarterfinal, so that led us to having a nice fresh Sierra for the semifinal, and then she just rolled through to the final as well.”
While provincials marks the end of the road at the high school level for the four Grade 12 players, Stonewall will return 10 players with championship experience who are eligible to come back next season.
With the opportunity to bring back such a large group, the prospect of repeating as champions will certainly be on the team’s mind in 2027.
“Softball in the Interlake, and softball in Stonewall, is in a good place right now,” said Grieve. “I think that as a high school team, we’re not looking at rebuilding. We’re more looking at the reload sort of thing with some kids coming up from Grade 8 and our strong base of returning players that we have already.”
