‘It was a good experience’
Published 9:24 am Wednesday, July 18, 2018
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 …”