The scoreboard at the 2018 Virginia Dixie Softball Darlings State Tournament didn’t do much to illustrate it over the weekend in Farmville, but the particularly young Prince Edward-Farmville Youth Association (PEFYA) All-Star team had a positive run that left its manager, Will Showalter, hopeful for the future.

“I think it was a good experience for the girls,” he said. “A lot of them, this was their first time that they’d experienced anything quite like this in a tournament format — with them being on the younger side — and to play these more experienced teams, I think it’s good for them in terms of a learning process, because they’re already playing a little up for their age, a lot of them were, and so playing more experienced competition is a good way to kind of learn the game.”

On Friday, PEFYA faced the Crewe-Burkeville All-Stars and fell 21-0. After a bye Saturday, the Prince Edward-Farmville squad was eliminated Sunday after a 22-1 loss to the Buckingham County All-Stars.

The intended age range of Darlings is 7- and 8-year-olds, though younger players are allowed to play up.

“At the beginning of our regular season back in March, to have numbers, we pulled up some of the more advanced 6-year-olds to play, and there was a good amount of those on the all-star team,” Showalter said. “So that’s why considering the age and considering the competition we were playing, I was overall very, very pleased, because we were where we needed to be, we were making the right decisions …”