Adam Prudhomme
Editor
A dozen of the province’s U13 softball teams will be in Napanee July 26-28 for the Provincial Women’s Softball Association U13 II Qualifier.
The Napanee U13 Express girls will play as the host team, kicking off their tournament with a 4 p.m. match against Whitby at North Fred.
Teams taking part in the qualifier in Napanee will be playing for seeding ahead of the Provincial Championship, with the top four finishing teams playing in the ‘A’ bracket, fifth through eight in the ‘B’ bracket with teams ninth through 12th place playing in ‘C’. The Grand Championship will take place Aug. 9-11 in Windsor.
Representing the home team Express will be Bailey Morris, Talia Eberle, Kendryl Hunter, Madison Howe, Shaye Brown, Olive McCullough, Kinley Cameron, Avery Murray, Ella Young, Adalyn Lloyd, Hannah Fournier and Payton Hill. They’re managed by Leanne Cameron with Shawn Trudeau as head coach with Jason Young and Aaron Hunter as assistant coaches.
Hosting a tournament offers a rare chance for the Express to play on home turf in front of friends and family, as they’re often tasked with travelling to bigger cities to play their league games.
“At this age they’re really developing, it gives you a good look at what the future holds as they get older,” said Trudeau of the qualifiers. “It should be a great event to watch the level of talent and ability that the girls have and where they’ll be in another couple of years.”
Not only will they be playing for seeding, but the qualifier gives them a chance to see how far they’ve come this summer as they continue to improve.
“We’ve been able to beat some teams that beat us earlier in the season so that was really positive, they can see the progression they’ve made,” said Trudeau. “We played in a tournament (earlier in July) and played well enough to make the medal round but unfortunately we got rained out. We were playing in the bronze medal game but the game got called due to rain and unfortunately when they called the game (the other team) was ahead of us so they won the bronze medal. But we were in that game and we did very well, once again against a team that had beaten us earlier in the year.”
They’ll look to continue to build on that momentum and put on a good showing for the hometown fans.
Games will continue throughout the weekend at North Fred as well as the Napanee Fairgrounds, with the finals set for Sunday at 3 p.m.