From the Prince George Citizen
Thursday, August 24, 2006

Complete overhaul for national men’s fastball finalists

by JASON PETERS, Citizen staff

The team name is the same. But, this edition of Newfoundland Impact Signs does not bear much resemblance to the one that went all the way to the final at the 2005 Canadian senior men’s fastpitch championship.

Last year in St. Thomas, Ont., Impact Signs lost 7-1 to the host team in the title game. When Newfoundland begins play Sunday in Prince George at the 2006 nationals, it will have just five returning players on its roster.

Given that fact, the expectations for Impact Signs are a little different this time around.

“We have a very young team,” said manager John Hill. “The nucleus of the team are playing in their first national. Basically, we’re going (to Prince George) to get some experience for our younger guys. Hopefully we’ll provide a good level of competition for the opposition teams. I know that there are only eight teams in the tournament, but I can assure you when I look at the names, just because there’s only eight teams doesn’t mean that the best ball players are not there. It seems like they’re all stacked in nice and neatly, spread out amongst the other seven teams.”

The five players back with Impact Signs for the 2006 nationals are pitcher Blair Ezekiel, catcher/outfielder Shane Fitzpatrick, outfielder Andrew Evans, outfielder Joe Maynard and catcher John Farrell. Players not back in uniform are pitchers Ward Gosse and Matthew Bramwell, centre fielder Stephen Mullaley, shortstop Geoff Evely and outfielder Jason Hill, the son of the Impact Signs manager.

Gosse and Bramwell both chose to join teams for last week’s International Softball Congress (ISC) world championship tournament in Kitchener, Mullaley is with St. Thomas for nationals, and Evely and Jason Hill are on the roster of the Saskatoon Aspen Interior Black Sox, who are among the favourites to claim the title.

“(Evely) and Jason Hill decided to go to Saskatoon so they could play more, play the (senior A) circuit, because the opportunity is not available here in Newfoundland,” John Hill said. “They moved away for development purposes.”

The Impact Signs team is based in St. John’s, the city that will play host to next year’s nationals. The club’s participation in this year’s event has a definite link to the 2007 tournament.

“We’re going to have two teams next year,” John Hill said. “Some of the guys that are going now are guys that would like an opportunity to play on one of those two teams. “I’ll be involved with one of the teams next year, in some capacity. (Playing this year) is a good opportunity for those guys to face some good competition, and not only for me to look at them, but for them to gauge themselves.”

Newfoundland has its first nationals game Sunday at 4 p.m. at Spruce City Stadium against the powerhouse Vancouver Grey Sox. The Grey Sox have nine players on their roster whose names can be found on Team Canada’s 35-player list.

Newfoundland’s approach to the Vancouver game will be no different than for any other contest.

“We’re going to play this one inning at a time,” Hill said.

“We’re eager and we’re ready to go and we’re looking forward to the trip. We just hope that things go really well.”

All eight teams will qualify for playoffs. The top four teams will have two lives to burn once they get there, while the bottom four will be eliminated with just one loss.

The championship final will be played Sunday, Sept. 3 at 1:30 p.m.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 24th, 2006 at 7:39 am and is filed under Tournaments. 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.