2015 Sooner Invitational – Tulsa Major tournament preview!
1st Annual
"Sooner Invitational"
Nationwide Conference USSSA!
Tulsa – Oklahoma
April 25th
Tournament Preview
presented by
The 2015 Nationwide Conference USSSA season continues in Tulsa, Oklahoma this weekend for the 1st Annual "Sooner Invitational! It is the week after the Dual in Florida so it is always tough to get teams to come to a tournament after that. This tournament is new on the Nationwide Conference USSSA schedule and replaces Kansas City just as Kansas City had replaced St Louis. The small field of teams is incredibly balanced though and I gave up making the weekly picks but I do think the top 4 will include at least two non-conference teams. Look out for Mayhem. I think just about every game in this tournament is about dead even. The weather looks good and the entire tournament will be played in one day (Saturday). This is a chance for some lucky team to win their first ever Conference event.
Team Breakdown
2 'B'
10 'C'
3 'D'
Broadcast schedule: USSSALive.com will attempt to stream 3 fields on Saturday
The chat room will be up on SoftballCenter.com as well
Don't forget to play the weekly pickem game!
Fields are 300 feet – there will be 8 HR limit per team
Again we have the Anonymous picker this week:.
The Sooner Invitational has just 5 conference teams and a total of 15. First place will be 180 conference points, and that makes this tournament well worth winning. It's quite a down shift in gears from the Hall of Fame dual event, but the train keeps rolling. Let's get to the picks.
The top section of the bracket will feature 3 Conference teams. Precision Recovery out of St Louis is in its first Conference USSSA action of the season. Bear Hollow is coming off a T-9 in Houston. Steel finished 13th in Houston, but the Texas South team has 3 early season tournament wins under its belt. David Prahm leads Steel into the Sooner, and the former ASP Nation player could put on a power show at the plate. Ultimately, it should come down to Bear Hollow and Steel in the top half of the bracket. I like Steel in the mini upset to get to the winner's final.
The bottom half of the bracket will feature Nightmare/Miken and Midwest Hearing as the only two Conference USSSA teams. I don't see either team having much of an issue meeting for the chance to get to the winner's final. Nightmare made a big pick-up in the off season nabbing Mike Brown from B&B Drywall. I look for Nightmare to get through.
If things play out the way I expect Nightmare will take on Bear Hollow in the winner's final. I like Nightmare to get through and eventually win the Sooner Invitational. Offensively I believe the team is the class of this tournament, and with the 8 home runs per game it should benefit Nightmare greatly over the rest. I'll take Bear Hollow to get back to Nightmare in the final over Midwest.
Final Tulsa Picks From our Anonymous picker:
1. Nightmare
2. Bear Hollow
3. Steel
4. Midwest Hearing
1st round game to watch: Dirty Birds vs Izzy Sports
Upset Potential: Dirty Birds
Last weeks results:
Dual I Results:
Prediction – Smash It Sports, Resmondo, Combat, Albicocco
Actual – Smash it Sports, Combat, Resmondo, CA Sports/Buzini
Dual II Results:
Prediction – Smash It Sports, Resmondo, Precision, 4 The Fallen
Actual – Resmondo, Smash It Sports, Racks, Backman Shoppe
Upset team to watch Deluxe Bakery Finished 0-2, 1-2 but did beat Pure Romance.
I accidently left Mayhem out of the poll. Sorry
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