OC Swats Doerflinger/Miken wins 2015 Southwest Invite!

February 8, 2015 by DW —No Comments ↓

OC Swats Doerflinger/Miken went 7-0 and defeated 4 The Fallen/Miken/CA Gear 28-27 in the championship game to win the 8th Annual Southwest Invite in Phoenix, Arizona. The tournament featured an open division with 24 teams in it, including 6 teams from the Nationwide Conference USSSA! They used the 8 HR limit and had bat testing. The tournament started on Saturday morning with 6 pools of 4 teams playing a 3 game flight which seeded the teams into a single elimination tournament which started on Saturday night and finished Sunday afternoon.

Recap by Elliot Clark:

2015 version of the SW Invite may have had the deepest field yet and by far the most perfect weather one could even ask for as it was 81-85 degrees Saturday and Sunday. OC Swats the defending champion was back to take on a very strong field. 24 teams played in the Open with the top 3 pools being very deep in talent. Chad Munger, Chris Larsen, Chris Hansen, Joe Gordon, Dan Kirkwood, and several other CUSSSA players made their SW Invite debutes along with the usual So Cal, Arizona and Nevada players.

Pool A, 4The Fallen (Very new and improved team) tied with AZ Stars / Hood Rich (Danny Lopes, Lex Ramierez, Dan Kirkwood, AJ Montano, Jason Krider, etc) but take care of business in their other games.

Pool B, OC SWATS ran the table and went 3-0 including beating a much deeper and talented Peak team from Colorado (who will be a very strong B team if this roster holds). AZM had a rough Pool stretch but has a lot of new young good talent and was just trying to figure things out in Pool Play.

Pool C, Make Shift stood out all day and went 3-0 with quality wins over very strong C/D teams from California and Nevada.

In bracket play the biggest surprise was Make Shift who beat a very good Toe 2 Toe team (Young talented team) and then beat Peak on Sunday morning to get into the Final 4. Make Shift hit all weekend and has a good mix of young talent and veteran hitters. 4TheFallen cruised in their first two games Sunday behind Munger's pitching and Denny Crine / John Baileys hitting. OC Swats dominated the other side of the bracket behind hitting up and down the lineup and solid defense. The Championship game OC SWats jumped to a large lead but 4TheFallen fought back and took a lead in the 5th. The game then was a classic CUSSSA back and forth affair with Swats breaking it open in the top of the 7th only to watch 4TheFallen score 6 with only 1HR left and end up losing 28-27 on a double play up the middle.

2015 Southwest Invite pool play bracket link

2015 Southwest Invite pool standings link

2015 Southwest Invite single elimination bracket link

Most of the top seeds still alive after two rounds of single elimination.