When Jackie Rothenberger made contact with a high, rising pitch and sent the ball sailing over the outfield fence Sunday in Brampton, Ont., she not only propelled her White Rock Renegades to a national midget fastpitch title, but also helped make a little history, too.

With the championship win, the 1991-born Renegades became the first-ever Canadian squad to capture national titles in Pee Wee (which the ’91s did in 2005), in Bantam (2007), and now, after a 2-1 win over the Manitoba Angels, in Midget, too.

“It’s absolutely awesome. This is a team that will be remembered for the ages,” White Rock head coach Chuck Westgard said from the road Monday, as he drove between Brampton and Guelph, host city for peewee fastpitch nationals in which the Renegades ‘95 will compete this week.

Rothenberger’s solo shot – which Westgard described as “a 250-foot bomb that was gone just as soon as it left the bat,” – broke a 1-1 deadlock in the top of the 10th inning, and set the team into a euphoric state in the visitor’s dugout.

In the bottom half of the inning, Renegades’ pitcher Nicole Sidor – who pitched all 10 innings of the final – set the final three Angel batters down in order to preserve the win.

Sidor fanned 14 batters in the contest, and her Manitoba counterpart, Amanda Greenberg, was just as good, striking out 11 Renegades.

“The whole game was just a great pitcher’s duel,” Westgard said. “But we have a few really good high-ball hitters on our team, so as the game went into extra innings, I knew that if we were going to win it, it was probably going to come down to something like (Rothenberger’s) home run.”

The win was a fitting end to an exhaustive weekend for the Renegades, who rolled through the round-robin portion of nationals with a perfect 7-0 (won-lost) record – with a handful of mercy-rule wins, too – before hitting a speed bump in the first playoff game, which was, coincidentally, against the Angels.

In the first game, the Renegades were surprised by the top-seeded Manitoba club, losing 1-0.

“It was a tough loss because it relegated us to the loser’s bracket, and meant we had to win four straight games (to win it all),” Westgard explained.

The Renegades responded by defeating the Guelph Gators 2-1 Saturday morning, followed by a 5-0 victory over the Quebec Rebelles in the afternoon. Sunday, White Rock blanked the Mississauga Tigers 5-0.

Until Saturday, Sidor had pitched every game for the Renegades, so the first three playoff wins were pitched by Courtney Cronin, who was picked up from the Surrey Storm prior to nationals.

“We had amazing pitching from both Nicole and Courtney,” Westgard said.

“We were really lucky to be able to put Courtney out there, because she really took some heat off Nicole.”

White Rock centre-fielder Toni Shutte was named the Most Valuable Player in the playoffs and Sidor was named the tournament’s top pitcher. Tournament all-star nods went to Renegades’s third base Marina Groenewegen of Surrey, and outfielder Marie Williams of North Delta.

- The Delta Heat were a game shy of qualifying for the eight-team playoff round, finishing round robin play with a 3-4 (won-lost) record. The Heat fell 5-3 to the Brantford Bobcats on Thursday, giving up the five runs in the first two innings.

Catcher Paige Collings led the Delta offence, driving in one run with a pair of hits. Collings, who completed her freshman season of university softball with the Drexel Dragons in Philadelphia, was the top batter in the round robin with a .609 average.

Angie Jay of the Heat was selected to the tournament all-star team as a utility player, after batting .455 and with a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage while playing third base.