Five Otago players have been named to play at New Zealand's premier softball tournament.
Matt Watts and Nelson Yorston will play for the Southern Pride men, while Sophie Johns, Jackie Padman and Nikki Taylor will represent the women's team.
The squads bring together the best players from around the South Island, with the exception of Canterbury, which fields its own team. They will play in the National Fastpitch Championships in Lower Hutt on February 16-19.
The inclusion of the women represents a huge success story for the region. Otago had not fielded a representative women's team for seven years before this season. That had prevented its players from putting their names forward for the Southern Pride. With a team put together at short notice this season, the trio were among those who impressed at the Jubilee Cup.
''We normally have two or three men be able to make those sides,'' Otago Softball development officer Doug Hall said.
''But to have the women there now as well and for them to then bring that experience back, that'll just add to the good stuff that's happening. [It is] definitely something positive that our women will be able to go away and compete at the top level again.
''We'd had a couple of looks early in the season at whether we'd be able to field a women's [Otago] team. Then one month before the Jubilee Cup tournament in Christchurch we were able to put that team together.
''So in October they weren't thinking about rep softball. Then they all came together and put that team together and now they're taking the next step again.''
In the men's team, Watts brings the experience of having played several years at representative level. A third baseman and catcher, he comes from a talented softball family and played for Southern Pride last year.
He is joined by Yorston, a pitcher who impressed playing for Southland at the under-19 national championships earlier this month. The first-choice pitcher for Otago at the Jefferies Cup, Yorston has a bright future and is in his first year out of King's High School.
Both men play for the Dodgers club.
Meanwhile, the under-15 South Island tournament concluded at Ellis Park on Sunday. Canterbury won the boys and girls titles. Both Otago teams had performed well through the round-robin, before succumbing to tough losses in the playoffs.
Otago pitchers Callum Rowley and Kaitlyn Hastie were selected for the girls and boys tournament teams respectively.
-By Jeff Cheshire
