2012 "Peach State Shootout" (Atlanta) tournament preview!
"Peach State Shootout" Atlanta – Major Preview
The Atlanta Major starts this Saturday morning, May 26th at Al Bishop Sports Complex in Marietta, Georgia. They have 5 fields which are around 300 feet and the fields usually play a little "short". The majority of the games will be played during the daylight when the temperatures are expected to be in the low 90's so the scores should be low until the semi-finals and winner's bracket final on Saturday night when the ball starts flying again.
Team breakout: 25 Teams: 4-A, 8-B, 7-C, 4-D and 2-E. 13 of the teams are from the Nationwide Conference USSSA.
I will again attempt to have the livestream feed up on Saturday starting at 11 AM. I probably won't do any announcing though until Saturday evening and the final games on Sunday.
Weather:
This tournament is wide open. Without any Major teams present, this tournament has an 'A' World feel to it.
Lets jump into the picks for this week. In the top quarter of the bracket I like Down2EarthSports over The Scene in the second round. The Scene need a win here but D2E is on their home turf and you know what a 'B' team plays like on their home turf? They play like an 'A' team. At 8 AM there is an interesting matchup in the first round between Pace and Scotts Lawn Care. Scotts has some of the Gas It group and Pace has a couple of players listed on their roster from the old Pace 'A' team days plus guys like Will O'Neal and Shaun Fleming. Should be a good game. I'll go with Pace for old times sake but its a 50/50 game. TYJA/Suncoast Reebok should beat either team anyways and matchup with D2E in the quarter finals. I'm going with the upset here and take #15 D2E to beat #8 TYJA/Suncoast 18-16.
In the second quarter of the bracket BaughFord which put up some nice offense in Tennessee last weekend will beat a hungry Headhunters team and Team 454 should roll over OI Livingston. 454 should also cruise past Baugh to go to the final 4.
In the bottom half lets go with #6 Shoppe over East Coast Elite, and Primetime over B&B Sears in a great matchup. Then Primetime gets a rematch with Shoppe from last years Peach State Shootout where Primetime knocked Shoppe into the loser's bracket 27-21. It could very well happen again but I'm going with Shoppe as I think their defense will be very good in the heat and the top of their order puts up "crooked" numbers every time around.
In the last part of the bracket the #2 team in the nation Demarini/Dirty/3N2 gets to beat on Major League and Taylormade is matched up against a feisty Westshore Pizza team. I'm going with the upset, Westshore over Taylormade and I'll stick with Demarini/Dirty over Major League and Taylormade to go to the final 4.
My final picks are:
1) Shoppe to double dip Demarini/Dirty on Sunday
2) Demarini/Dirty (too good in night games so they will win the winner's bracket championship)
3) Team 454
4) Down2EarthSports.com (its their tournament after all!)
Tied for 5th) Westshore and TYJA/Suncoast
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