Junior Men’s Fast Pitch Championships to begin today

From the Whitehorse Daily Star

Expectations are high as Canada’s top junior ball players take to the field tonight for the team’s opening game against the Czech Republic at the Eighth ISF Junior Men’s Fast Pitch Championships.

June 20, 2008

Photo by Jon Molson
BATTER UP – A player on Team Australia sizes up a pitch during the country’s practice session on Thursday evening at Takhini diamond four.

Expectations are high as Canada’s top junior ball players take to the field tonight for the team’s opening game against the Czech Republic at the Eighth ISF Junior Men’s Fast Pitch Championships.

The game will be played at 7 p.m. at Field One in the Pepsi Softball Centre and will follow the championships opening ceremonies, which are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.

“We are excited about playing in front of our own country and feel privileged to do so,” said Canada’s Team Leader Duke Cormier. “It’s a benefit to us.”

An all-time record of 12 teams for the championships are set to compete in round robin format for the next seven days. The tournament began today with a match between Australia and Botswana, which started at noon on Field One. This will be Botswana’s first appearance in the junior fastpitch championships.

The other countries include the Czech Republic, Argentina, Denmark, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, the United States and Venezuela. Of the 12 countries, only Canada, the United States and Japan have competed in all eight junior fastpitch championships, which was first held in 1981.

After the conclusion of round robin play, the top four countries will advance to the page playoff, which is scheduled to begin on June 28. The page playoff format features the third and fourth place teams facing off against one another, which will immediately be followed by a second game between two top teams at the championships.

The winning team of the second page playoff game will earn a direct birth into the Grand Final. The team that comes out victorious between the third and fourth place squads will then play whichever team loses the second playoff match.

In recent years, Australia has been on a tear at the championships and are currently the three-time defending champions.

The Australians haven’t dropped a single game in the past two world junior events and are, to date, the only team that have been able to win the title on home soil.

This feat came in 2001 in Sydney. Australia first participated in the championships in 1993, which was the fourth time the event was held.

With five medals to its credit, Canada’s overall performance at the championships has been nothing to sneeze at. The country has consistently been a top contender at this event, winning its first medal on home soil in Summerside P.E.I., in 1989.

In Summerside, the team finished second overall after losing a close 5-4 heartbreaker to New Zealand.

In 1993, Canada returned the favour to the host country New Zealand, winning the gold medal game by a score of 4-3. Canada has finished in third place at the past three junior men’s championships, which were held in 1997, 2001 and 2005.

The selection process for final squad of 17 has been ongoing for the past couple of years ago, with Canada’s coaching staff travelling across the country to identify potential players.

This past May, a week-long camp was held in Tampa, Florida that featured 26 athletes. The team was finalized not long afterward and announced on May 20.

Canada’s 2008 group convened once again in Vancouver before travelling to Whitehorse. In Vancouver the team played an exhibition series against another tournament favourite Japan as well as a number of senior men’s teams.

The series against Japan should provide a lot of encouragement for the Canadian juniors, heading into the championships. In Vancouver the Canadians went an impressive 2-1-1 against the Japanese, who traditionally have always done very well at the championships. One of Japan’s tournament highlights include winning the gold medal at the inaugural competition, which was held in Edmonton.

This year’s Canadian squad is a well balanced team, with capable hitters from the top to bottom of the batting order. The team also has sufficient speed and real power in the middle of the line up, as well as plenty of skills on the defensive end of the game.

The group arrived in Whitehorse on Wednesday and took a bit of a break, before meeting for a light indoor practice on Thursday.

Cormier said the exhibition series in Vancouver helped the Canadian juniors with coming together as a team.

“It’s small steps,” he said. “We characterize this as a marathon and we just want to pace ourselves and try to get better right to the very end of the tournament.”

He said there is a little bit of pressure with playing on home soil.

“We are here to win and every one of these players are here to win,” he said. “I’m sure they are going to put certain pressure on themselves, but that’s our job as a coaching and administrative staff to prepare them for that. Playing in front of their home country will obviously add that much more pressure, but hopefully it’s a good pressure.”

Cormier said the team is confident heading into the championships.

“We have come here to win this thing and if that happens that won’t be a major surprise to us,” he said. “That being said, there is some real tough competition here and we know that, but we are a confident crew. We have worked hard and the athletes have prepared well.”

Shane Boland, 17, plays second base and shortstop for the Canadian junior men’s team. Boland said he is looking forward to playing in front of the home crowd.

“It’s nice even making the team and then being here in the Yukon is also great because it’s in our home country, so we’ll get lots of fans,” he said.

He said he is confident heading into the tournament and credits both the teams offensive and defensive capabilities as being the main reason.

Mike Noftall,18, is slotted as an outfielder, pitcher and shortstop for Team Canada.

Noftall, who is from St. John’s, said it is important for the team to get off on a winning note in order to get their confidence up.

He said he feels better about going into the championships after participating in the Vancouver training camp.

“I think that is where everyone came together and jelled,” he said. “I think that was the main part of going to Vancouver. The experience against the senior teams in Vancouver was really needed. It was good.”

When asked if he was nervous about the game against the Czech Republic, Noftall responded “Not right now, but tomorrow I think, once we get there and we see all the fans I think there will be a little butterflies, but that will pass.”

Joran Graham, 19, is a listed as a pitcher, second baseman and outfielder on Team Canada. He said the team’s goal is to medal at the championships.

“I think we have a pretty good shot,” he said. “Our offense is pretty good, everyone seems to be hitting the ball. Overall I am confident about how we are going to do, but our offense I think is going to be consistent all week.”

Dan Mitchell, 18, will play mostly in right field and at shortstop for the championships. Mitchell likes his team’s chances at being successful at the tournament.

“I think we have a good chance,” he said. “We seem to fair off pretty good against Japan and they have come second the past two times, so I think we have a pretty good chance this year.”

He said he has heard a lot of talk about how formidable an opponent the Australians are going to be at the tournament.

“Everybody always says the Australians are pretty good,” Mitchell said. “So it’s pretty cool to get a chance to play against them and see how we do.”

John Neilsen is the head of coach of Team Australia. He said there are four teams that they expect really tough competition from, which includes Canada.

The Australians also participated in a series of exhibition matches in Vancouver and ended up winning an incredible 16 out of 18 games. What makes this accomplishment even more impressive was the fact that all of the games Australia played in Vancouver were against senior men’s teams.

Team Australia’s goal is to place in the top four, which would qualify them for the page playoff.

Neilsen said despite the team winning three straight word junior titles, he doesn’t feel any pressure heading into the tournament.

“I thought there might have been, but now that I am here, there hasn’t been any pressure,” he said. “Basically you come here and you don’t really know any other teams, so there’s not really anyone that you need to fear. Just wait and see who turns up to play on the day and our team is prepared pretty well.”

Besides tonight’s game, Canada will play against Argentina on Field 1 at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The team will play twice on Sunday, with the first game starting at 11 a.m. on Field Two, against South Africa. The team’s final contest on Sunday will be against New Zealand, starting at 7:30 p.m. on Field One.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 10:32 pm and is filed under General, ISF, Youth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.