2010 Santa Fe Springs I Tournament

Liberty Rings Out

The first tournament of the year is complete with Liberty FP taking home the championship at Little Lake Park in Santa Fe Springs.  Temperatures were in the high 70's all weekend with overcast mornings, perfect for playing.  The tournament had 15 teams entered at various levels and quality play was displayed all weekend, so I’m guessing we didn’t get the message that fastpitch needed to be saved in So Cal after all.

Going into Sunday’s single elimination, 4 teams (San Diego Primetime, Maccabi USA, Long Beach Black Sox and Liberty FP) posted 3-0 records and all were separated by 5 runs in the runs allowed tie breaker.   Two of the teams had to go to the next tie breaker which was runs scored, and once again only 3 runs separated them.  San Diego earned the top spot by only allowing one run in the round robin much to the shock of the other 3-0 teams who all thought they had the best record.

There were a few new teams in the tournament such as the Bandits who also play in the SCIFL’s Master League but bought in some new young faces this past weekend from the Artesia league.  Also J&B Painting also played in their first SCIFL event with players from the local Burbank league that plays Wednesday nights throughout the year.  Mi Tierra is a team from players from teams that have folded the past couple of seasons and earned a 6th place seed into the single elimination bracket using the arms of Tommy Obergon and Johnny “Pee Wee” Rodriguez.  Mi Tierra also had a big win on Sunday against the Panteras in the first round of the single elimination.  Balboa also had their first SCIFL event with long time veteran Cecillo Smalling starting a new team and allowing additional players the opportunity to play and/or learn the game.  Also the Rez Dawgs from Central California played in the tournament and hope to be back at a few more this year.

Liberty FP finished the round robin with the 4th place seed utilizing the pitching staff of Darrin McCall, Doug Rooney and Ed Patterson and faced J&B Painting in the first round and won 6-0.  In the second round they faced Mi Tierra and once again won 6-0.  In the semi-finals they faced the number one seed San Diego Primetime and jumped to an early lead and finished the game with an 8-1 victory to get them into the championship game against the Colton Dirt Bags.

In the championship game, Patterson was in the circle against Desiree Serrano of the Dirt Bags.  Both teams went out in order in the 1st inning and Dave Waco earned a walk in the 2nd inning and scored on Mike “Spanky” Thomas  triple.  Serrano got the next two outs to end the inning.  In the 3rd, Liberty FP scored their second run with an assist and throwing error to take a 2-0 lead.  Anthony Martinez came in for relief of Serrano in the 4th inning.

Patterson did not allow a hit until the 4th when Ed Mendez, Jr  singled and eventually scored on a ground out to cut the lead to one.  Martinez and Patterson both pitched scoreless innings into the bottom of the 7th.  The Dirt Bags were not going to go away quietly with the first batter of the inning reaching base safely on an error, then an out later on a single and hustle by the Dirt Bags runners they had the tying run at third and winning run at second.  Liberty FP manager Tom Dudley went to circle and gave his team their options and Patterson struck out the next batter for the second out of the inning.  The next batter was hit by a pitch to load the bases and make it a little more interesting.  With the bases full, Patterson struck out the third batter of the inning to preserve the championship for Liberty FP.

The Colton Dirt Bags placed 8th seed from the round robin with a 1-2 record and had a tough bracket ahead of them.  The pitching staff for the Dirt Bags consisted of Serrano, Martinez and Bret Pobanz.  In the first round they faced the Carribeans who can never be counted out and won the game in a pitcher’s duel on a Martinez home run blast, 1-0.  In the second round it did not get any easier with them facing Maccabi USA and the Dirt Bags squeaked out the 4-3 victory which lead them to the semi-finals against the Long Beach Black Sox, probably the toughest team to beat the past 3 years.  Pobrantz had the ball for this game for the Dirt Bags and earned the win 5-3.

To not say something about San Diego Primetime and Maccabi USA would be an error as both played a great tournament.  San Diego Primetime behind the pitching of Danny Zupp and Joe Nuanez finished the round robin by allowing only a single run while scoring 23.  And Maccabi USA also sported two of the newer younger pitchers with Jason Gluckman and Dan Winnick along with the grizzly old veteran David Blackburn who combined to allow only 4 runs while scoring 19.

If this weekend was any indication of how the season will go, it’s going to be a good one.

For additional coverage and stories of this weekend’s tournament; go to Fastptichwest.com for Jim’s angle on things, even if he was in his tight bike short this weekend instead of softball pants scaring the players. 

Next up for the SCIFL is the Las Vegas Road Trip April 10-11 with 27 teams entered into the event in 3 separate classifications.