Monday March 18th, 2024
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Columbus, Indiana Conference Tournament Preview, Picks, some Commentary!

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Conference tournament #7 will take place in Columbus, Indiana at Lincoln Park.  The tournament features 6 'A' teams, 8 'B' teams, 10 'C' teams, and 4 'D' teams.  Overall 12 of the teams are Conference teams.

If they are using the much talked about Dudley Classic M .40 core ball then all the homerun limits should be hit in what looks to be fairly cool evening conditions.

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In the first round there are some interesting matchups with Pipac/TCP taking on a veteran K&G/Reds/Astros/TPS.  Also P&P333 vs Players Warehouse could be a decent C vs C game.

Here are my pics for the first round.

B&C, Pipac, Jean Shoppe, Hubs Pub, Darkside, Bears Boyz in the top half

Midwest Swing, Team Combat, Blitz, Elite (although this could be an upset), EWS, Players Warehouse, and Pure Romance in the bottom half. 

No real upsets there, although poor use of homeruns could make any of these games interesting.

In the second round:

I'll go with GTL over B&C, Shoppe over Pipac, Hubs over Darkside, NW Combat over Bears Boys although I think this one could be close. 

Team Combat over Midwest Swing, Blitz over Elite, EWS over Players Warehouse, Sinister over Pure Romance although PR might hang tough.

In the third round:

In a rematch of the 2009 'A' World Finals I'll take Jean Shoppe over GTL in what shapes up to be the best game of the tournament.

I'll take NW Combat over Hubs Pub.  Blitz over Team Combat, and Sinister over EWS.

In the 4th round:

I'll take Shoppe over NW Combat and Sinister over Blitz.  In the winner's final I'll take Sinister over Shoppe and pick Shoppe to come back and double dip Sinister in the finals with GTL 3rd and NW Combat 4th.

This is one tournament where there will be a lot of great games in the loser's bracket late in the day.  Sadly missing from this tournament are 2 fairly local teams EAP and MidwestCoast/Columbus Pipe.  Wish you guys were here.

There has been a lot of message board discussion about the "good old days" of softball compared to today.  The equipment has definitely changed the game so it is like comparing apples and oranges.  This weekend there are no Major teams.  When you look at the quality of the teams playing though you have to remember that today's 'A' division is equivalent to the 'AA" division of the 1990's as far as talent and today's 'B' division is equivalent to the 'A' division of the 1990's.  With that being said this tournament in Indiana is simply the next Conference event on the schedule and you have 14 teams equivalent to the "old days" 'AA' and 'A' program teams plus 10 very good 'C' teams that are going to get to free swing all weekend.  This is a great tournament and I hope to see each and every game after the first round go 7 innings.

For those 'C' teams in the tournament and even 'D", you cannot get down on yourselves even if you are down 10 runs or more.  With this ball and quality homerun management ANY 10 players on ANY team is capable of getting on a roll and putting up a double figure inning at ANYTIME!

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