Noonan said his team is loaded with talented, natural athletes, including nine players who represented P.E.I. in baseball and one who represented the province in softball during the Canada Summer Games two weeks ago in Winnipeg.
Practices for the Canadian U18 championship started for Team P.E.I. only after first wave athletes returned home from the Canada Games. They were just too busy with other ball commitments prior to that.
Although many of the players have a baseball background, Noonan said they’ve made the transition well.
The biggest adjustment, he suggested, will be the up and down motion of the pitches compared to a lot of left and right movement of the baseball.
Noonan and fellow P.E.I. softball pitcher Steve Langley have been throwing hard at the batters in practice to get them used to the different movement.
“They’ve adjusted to the speed well, as I knew they would because they’re all athletes,” Noonan said.
Noonan’s son, Dylan, who played outfield with the Canada Games baseball team, will make his debut as a softball pitcher at nationals. He’s been working out his arm for that opportunity since February.
Jarred Ostridge is also making the transition to pitching after playing other positions with Canada Games softball team.
While the head coach expects both Noonan and Ostridge to see duty this week in O’Leary, he’s hoping a pickup from Ontario, Marshall Kulich, will be able to handle much of the throwing. Kullich was recommended to the P.E.I. team by an Ontario coach. “(The coach) said he’ll eat up a lot of innings for us,” said Noonan. “He’s definitely going to be our most experienced and, by the sounds of it, probably our hardest thrower.”
Team P.E.I. got together for an inter-squad game Monday evening at the Jeff Ellsworth Field in O’Leary.
Kullich, however, was only scheduled to arrive Tuesday.
Noonan said there’s a shuffle-shuffle-throw motion for fielders in baseball whereas softball fielders have to come out of the catch throwing.
“I’m really pleased with how they’ve come along with their defense, pretty much instantly,” he commented.
“We have a strong group: strong arms, smooth hands fielding. If our pitchers can go in and give us strikes and keep the walks down, I think these guys will do their part for defense and, hopefully, we can get some luck and get the bat on the ball a bit, assessed Noonan.
Well-known P.E.I softball player Mike Craig, is assistant coach for Team P.E.I.
The Canadian championship tournament, which starts on both O’Leary fields Wednesday morning and runs until Sunday, will be followed immediately by a Canada Junior Men’s election camp, Three members of the P.E.I. team, Dawson Sellick, Brayden Handrahan and Dylan Noonan have been invited to that camp.
“These guys know they’re going to be watched. The coaches from the national junior men’s team are gong to be around, scouting all week and keeping an eye on the players on their list,” coach Noonan acknowledged. “Whether they feel a little bit more pressure or not, I’m not sure.”
But Noonan stressed P.E.I. is fielding a well-gelled team, and the players already know each other well. “That will help take some of the pressure off of these guys. They know they have a pretty good squad with them.”
