The Red Deer Pink Braves, Central Alberta’s first all-girl baseball team, had its finale in a play-off tournament in Lacombe over the weekend.

Last summer Dan Zinger, head coach of the team, his friend Davin Gulbransen, assistant coach and his wife Kristen Gulbransen thought up the idea of starting the team.

Zinger’s daughters have been in gymnastics since they were little, and it was becoming important for him to get them into a team sport of some kind.

And so it began.

Last summer, he and the Gulbransens put together an eight-week clinic where one night a week for the eight weeks they brought 16 girls together with he and Gulbransen teaching them the basics of baseball.

“We did basically little mini games to make the whole thing super fun,” said Zinger.

Over the off season the Gulbransens approached the City to see if they could start the all-girls team and to see if they could get them playing in some kind of a league. And they got the green light, playing in the Central Alberta Baseball League.

The team is made up of 12 girls, mostly ages 10 to 12.

“All 12 of these girls have never played baseball outside of the little clinic type thing we did last year, so their exposure to actual baseball was really limited. And none of them had even played fastball,” said Zinger.

“We made a point that we were going to make sure that this was the most fun these girls have ever had on a team.”

The girls played their first game in May and the next team won’t start up again until next spring.