Adam Prudhomme
Editor
One of three trips to the U14 Canadian Fast Pitch Championship will up for grabs at the Napanee Fairgrounds and North Fred this weekend during the OASA Eliminations.
A field of 19 teams from across Ontario, including the host Napanee Express, will compete in the double-knock out tournament, all vying for at least a top three finish to secure a spot at Nationals.
The first game of the tournament will take place Friday at 2 p.m. between Durham and Westport. The winner of that game advances to face the Express at 6 p.m. on the Richard Dickson diamond.
Rounding out the tournament field will be Tavistock, Chatsworth, Tara, Bracebridge, New Hamburg 1, Oshawa, Kitchener-Waterloo, Fitzroy Harbour, Drumbo, ORSA, Port Perry, Dutton, Elmira, Perterbourgh, Springbrook and New Hamburg 2.
“The last few years we’ve seen more teams and it’s really exciting to see a lot of communities back playing competitive softball,” said Express head coach Stephen Paul. “It’s great for the sport.”
Nineteen teams is an increase in recent years, with several entries expected to be competitive.
“The challenging part of these tournaments is there’s quite a bit of unknown,” said Paul. “We haven’t had the opportunity to play all the teams so there’s always surprises, but that makes it fun.”
Any team that has aspirations of finishing in the top three will have to play at least five games in the three day span.
“It’s somewhat of a marathon over a short period of time,” said Paul. “In many cases if you get on a roll, things can go well for you. We’re hoping that’s the case for us.”
Representing the home team will be Kaden Fowler (jersey no. 5) Ty Kemp (6), Jackson Colazio (7), Ethan Sutcliffe (9), Derek Li (10), Finn Fisher (11), Caleb South (12), Jack Madden (16), Will Myers (19), Gavin Brooks (26), Brandon Barker (39) and Luke Paul (55).
Coming off a silver medal at provincials last year and a strong start to the season so far, the Express have reason to believe they’ll be playing deep into Sunday.
“We’ve been playing very well in the last two weeks,” said Paul. “We’ve been successful in the last two tournaments, silver medalists in both. The athletes on our team are playing well and peaking at the right time. I know everyone’s looking forward to playing in a tournament of this stature right here in Napanee.”
This will mark the fourth tournament Softball Napanee has hosted this summer.
“It takes a real team effort to put on these tournaments, from the organization, to the umpires in the area to our volunteers that help,” said Paul. “It’s a real team effort to put them on and it’s nice to be recognized (by the OASA by granting them tournaments), we’re proud of that.”
A win on Friday would mean Napanee would play at 10 a.m. Saturday. A loss means they’d play at noon. The championship game is scheduled for 3 p.m. on Sunday. A complete tournament draw is available at www.SoftballNapanee.com.
The top three teams from this weekend’s tournament will earn the right to play in the Canadian Softball Championships, July 27-31 in Saskatoon, Sask.