SPARKS, NV -The Western Shootout Championships, sanctioned by the ASA, came to the Shadow Mountain Sports Complex in Sparks, Nevada July 29th-30th and thirty-seven teams in three divisions came to take a shot at national tournament berths that were up for grabs. The action on the field was hot, just as the sizzling 100+ degree temperatures that welcomed the teams when they arrived at the tournament site.
The twelve team ‘E’ bracket had a berth to the men’s ‘E’ Nationals in Lancaster, California at stake and in a thrilling back-and-forth extra-inning game Motherlode, out of Auburn, California outlasted local Northern Nevada favorite, Small Town Boys, 13-12 in nine innings to lay claim to the ‘E’ division title, with a tournament best 6-1 record and the national qualifying berth. In one of the best games seen this summer, Motherlode and STB battled to an 8-8 tie after seven innings. In the extra frames STB would force the issue and put pressure on their opponents. In both the eighth and ninth innings STB would push across two runs to take a lead and then turn the game over to the defense. Motherlode, in both cases, responded with dramatic success. In the eighth inning Motherlode pushed across two runs with two outs to send the championship game to the ninth inning. After STB went out to a 12-10 lead, Motherlode would strike for the final three runs of the contest and walk away with the exciting 13-12 victory. The winning effort by Motherlode also earned them $1,062 in travel money in addition to the national berth. STB who finished at 3-2 earned $708 in travel awards. The Dirty Birds, from Sparks, Nevada, finished in the third place with a 3-2 tournament mark.
The ‘D’ bracket had a strong twenty-team field and several teams were in contention the entire weekend and with a different bounce of the ball or timely hit the results could have swung in many different directions. The champion of the ‘D’ division went to SB Performance, from Hollister, California who used a pesky, yet effective, offensive method of dinking, dunking and slap-hitting to befuddle the six straight opponents they were victorious over. The 6-0 tournament record was the best posted at the Shootout on this weekend. In the finale, SB faced BFC who entered the final with a 6-1 mark and had been impressive all weekend long in reaching the championship round. BFC put one run up in the top of the first, but that was the last time they smelled the lead in the game as SB Performance scored 16 runs in the bottom half of the frame and cruised to an easy 18-6 rout of the BFC squad. Third place in the ‘D’ went to Redding, California’s Biggins Boys who finished at 3-2. The Biggins Boys also had both most valuable player awards given to them as Scott Hobbs earned the offensive MVP and Scott Edwards was awarded the defensive MVP honor. The rest of the all tourney team slots went to BFC’s Brandon Noonkester and Angel Olivera while Dino Quintero and Guillermo Lopez from SB performance were awarded selection.
The ‘C’ bracket saw a small five team field battle for the top spot and J&E/DWC/DSS Bats came away with three solid wins and completed the title run with a championship round victory over perennial powerhouse Lockdown. Lockdown finished at 3-2 to finish in the runner-up position. The J&E squad earned the available berth to the ‘C’ nationals later this summer in Minnesota.