About 70 U15 and U17 women’s softball players hit the turf at the East Hants Sportsplex in Lantz, N.S., this weekend. “We’ve had some great athletes in Atlantic Canada that have gone on to do great things internationally. We’ve never had women’s softball, and we don’t see any reason why other than there just hasn’t been the type of support and the infrastructure to create that,” says the founder of Canada East Softball Mark Smith. Smith knows what it takes to reach the highest level in the sport. The Halifax native is widely recognized as one of the greatest softball athletes of all time winning numerous awards as a coach, including a bronze medal in the 2020 Olympic Games. Smith wants to provide these young players with the same advantages he had as a young athlete. “I came up watching it, I came up being mentored by the better senior men’s players at overtime and helped me develop. Women’s softball in our part of the world hasn’t had that,” he says. The players seem to recognize the opportunity in front of them. “You don’t really get these high training coaches, especially non-parent coaches in Nova Scotia so I think it’s a good opportunity,” says Norah King of Halifax. “I think it’s a great opportunity to have him because he’s a good pitching coach and I’m a pitcher so it’s very good to have him and he just likes the sport a lot and he’s good at coaching.” Smith isn’t doing this alone; coach Jeff Ellsworth played on the men’s national team for 15 years. “When he called, it was a no-brainer because this is something that I’ve wanted to do for a lot of years and to team up with Smitty and his experience, I jumped on board right away,” says Ellsworth. “It’s long overdue. There’s lots of talent in this region, and Smitty will attest to this too that for a lot of years these girls are very athletic, they’re very good ball players and we’re going to try to make them better ball players and open some doors for them.” Those doors include university teams in both Canada and the United States, national women’s teams and possibly the Olympics. “I want to go as far as softball will take me and I’ll just see where I can go from there,” says Ellie MacLean who came from Prince Edward Island for the weekend training camp. The players who make the cut will train throughout the winter and then travel to Florida for a competition in the spring and possibly the first step in a long career on the softball diamond. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
