From The Guardian:
By CHARLES REID

P.E.I.’s 1-7 record at the recent under-19 international men’s softball championship in?Charlottetown isn’t a great accomplishment, but it’s the job of Jeff Ellsworth, Team P.E.I. co-coach, to look closer.

Those seven defeats included two one-run losses and two two-run losses. That from a team with no league to play in, which forced it to scrimmage with the Charlottetown Fawcetts senior men’s team and a hodge-podge squad of former fastpitch devotees before the under-19 tourney.
“Sometimes the score does not always reflect how well the game went for a specific team. We came into the event with a goal to give ourselves a chance to win each game and for the most part we did that,” said Ellsworth in an email interview. “We played in a lot of close ball games that were won late in the game or extra innings were needed. We put the bat on the ball and didn’t make too many errors and we got the pitching from all our starters.”

Ellsworth, who’s in Saskatoon, Sask., this week with Team Canada for the International Softball Federation world men’s fastpitch championship, shared P.E.I.’s bench duties with Darcy Harris.
P.E.I. started the under-19 tourney with a 9-3 loss to the Northwest Territories but stuck it out and remained competitive before losing 1-0 to Alberta in the relegation tournament.
So how does Ellsworth compare the province’s softball program to the rest of Canada?

“We are a little weak in the numbers department, but rank up there in the skill department. With a few breaks this past week we were right there. We have many talented ball players on P.E.I., but not all play softball, which is fine. We just don’t have thousands of players to choose from when selecting a team, but I have to say sometimes that’s a good thing because the players that we selected all came for the right reasons and had the heart to play,” he said.

His current job, a fourth-year outfielder with the national squad, has him suiting up for one of 16 countries in Saskatoon. Canada is 3-0 midway through its seven-game round-robin schedule. Playoffs start Friday. The worlds operate on a four-year rotation like the Olympics. New Zealand is the three-time defending world champ. Canada last won in 1992.

Ellsworth hopes to be asked to coach P.E.I. for the next under-19 international event (it replaced the Canada Games men’s softball dropped for 2009), but will be onboard for the eastern Canadian championship next month in Quebec.

The Tignish native said his team’s will to compete proved a strength and with more games and time improvement is inevitable.

“These kids all know the game and can play well, but to succeed at this level you need to play all the time and for what we did leading up to the event, we exceeded our team and personal goals,” he said.

“Overall, the boys played really well.”

creid@theguardian.pe.ca.

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