The Prince Edward-Farmville Youth Association (PEFYA) Angels All-Star team gave fans a glimpse of its bright future before ultimately being eliminated Monday, taking third place in the Brunswick-hosted Dixie Softball Angels X-Play All-Star District 1 Tournament.

The PEFYA squad achieved a pair of impressive victories in the double-elimination event but could not get past the Dinwiddie All-Stars. Prince Edward-Farmville fell 14-2 in its opener Friday against Dinwiddie and lost 20-4 in a rematch Monday.

“Dinwiddie is good,” PEFYA Manager David Schmidt said Wednesday. “They ended up winning it last night,” topping the Crewe-Burkeville All-Stars 10-4 in the district title game.

But those losses did not define Schmidt’s evaluation of his team’s overall play during the tourney. He described his players’ collective performance as above his expectations.

“They performed really well,” he said. “The beginning of the tournament, the first game, we weren’t really hitting, and then after that, we started hitting the ball. Dinwiddie had some faster pitchers, but we were still putting the bat on the ball. They were just making the plays.”

He noted that on an individual level, no one PEFYA girl was a primary standout “because everybody on that team contributed, and everybody played really well.”

Schmidt cited that a real strength to the team was that seven of its 12 members could pitch. Those pitchers included Sarah Lucas, Kaylie Ledger, Kenna Schmidt, Kiley Capati, Kaleigh Boettcher, Kendall Snead and Kelly Womack.

The intended age range of Angels is 9- and 10-year-olds, while it is 7- and 8-year-olds for Darlings.

“We had a range from 8-year-olds up to 10-year-olds,” Schmidt said of his Angels All-Star team. “We had four girls that were still eligible for Darlings.”

The team’s success in the face of this youth and tough, Angel-level competition is something with which the manager said he was quite impressed.

After their opening lopsided loss to Dinwiddie, the PEFYA Angels orchestrated a blowout win, eliminating the Blackstone All-Stars via a 13-2 final score Saturday.

Schmidt said his team’s best game came Sunday against the Clarksville All-Stars when it eliminated them by winning 12-11.

“We were down 9-1 going into the third inning, and then the third inning, we came back, and it was 10-9,” he said. “And then they scored two runs in the fourth and went up 11-10. And then we scored one in the fourth, and it was a tie game. And so when it went into the fifth (and final) inning, we held them.”

When Prince Edward-Farmville had its turn on offense, Ledger got on base.

“Kenna was up to bat with two strikes and two outs, and she hit the ball, and Kaylie scored on it,” the manager said.

Pitchers contributing to the win included Lucas and Ledger.

The key girls in the circle for PEFYA during the victory over Blackstone were Lucas and Kenna Schmidt.