{"id":21994,"date":"2013-08-21T04:25:42","date_gmt":"2013-08-21T11:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=21994"},"modified":"2013-08-21T04:25:42","modified_gmt":"2013-08-21T11:25:42","slug":"fawcetts-eagles-open-provincial-senior-mens-fastpitch-championship-series-tonight-in-oleary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/?p=21994","title":{"rendered":"Fawcetts, Eagles open provincial senior men’s fastpitch championship series tonight in O’Leary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Click<\/a>
Click logo for complete news story.<\/figcaption><\/figure>By Eric McCarthy, The Guardian<\/em><\/p>\n

O\u2019LEARY \u2014 No matter who wins the best-of-three P.E.I.\u2019s senior men\u2019s fastpitch championship, representatives of both teams agree the series has the potential to rebuild the sport in the province.
\nMark Arsenault of the Charlottetown Fawcetts and Jeff Ellsworth of the O\u2019Leary Eagles are believed to be the only players in the series who were also on the field the last time there was a provincial championship series 12 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just exciting to have that provincial again,\u201d said Arsenault, the Fawcetts\u2019 first baseman. \u201cIt will be interesting ball. It will be high intensity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The series gets underway tonight at Ellis Field in O\u2019Leary at 6 p.m.
\nCurtis Reilly, the Eagles\u2019 leftfielder, played with the Fawcetts at nationals last year and is looking forward to facing them in the provincial final. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a great bunch of guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Great or not, Reilly and his Eagles teammates are eager to claim the championship trophy and suggested their ace pitcher, Mitch Hardy, could be the difference in the final.<\/p>\n

The Fawcetts will host Game 2 Thursday at 6 p.m. at City Diamond. A third game, if necessary \u2014 and both teams think it will be \u2014 will be played in O\u2019Leary on Friday, also at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n

The championship was going to be a best-of-seven affair, but it got scaled back on Tuesday as the Fawcetts will be pulling out Saturday for the national championship in Stratford, Ont.<\/p>\n

Hardy is playing with the Fawcetts in that tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cMitch is a guy, if you give him the ball, he\u2019ll enter the game and he seems to get the job done, and he loves these settings when it\u2019s the finals or it\u2019s the playoff,\u201d said Reilly. \u201cHe\u2019ll be key for us, without question.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arsenault said the Fawcetts have that same respect for him. That\u2019s why they\u2019ve signed him up to play for them at nationals.
\nThe Fawcetts, however, have some strong pitchers of their own, including Steve Langley and Nova Scotian Randy Frame.
\n\u201cThe key for us when we get to nationals is get some good pitching, play good defence and get the ball in play,\u201d said Arsenault. \u201cThat won\u2019t change against the Eagles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Mitchell and Jeff and the athletes they have on that team, they are just like playing a team at nationals. We will go in with the same mindset going into next week as we will with the Eagles this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reilly praised Arsenault\u2019s hitting ability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what he does. He smashes balls out of the park,\u201d he noted.
\nHe said another strong hitter for the Fawcetts is Chris Craig.
\nThe Eagles will add Arsenault and Craig on their roster when they host the Eastern Canadian championship in two weeks.<\/p>\n

As for the Eagles, Reilly said their team can counter in the provincials with the bats of Team Canada captain Jeff Ellsworth, Troy Ellsworth, Darcy Harris, Mark Quinn and Jason Smallman.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve got a pretty full squad,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Eric McCarthy, The Guardian O\u2019LEARY \u2014 No matter who wins the best-of-three P.E.I.\u2019s senior men\u2019s fastpitch championship, representatives of both teams agree the series has the potential to rebuild the sport in the province. Mark Arsenault of the Charlottetown Fawcetts and Jeff Ellsworth of the O\u2019Leary Eagles are believed to be the only players […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21995,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21994\/revisions\/21995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastpitchwest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}