Thursday March 28th, 2024
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2014 ASA Super National tournament report!

 

 

 

 

2014 ASA Super National 

 

Oklahoma City, OK

 

September 26th

 

 

Link to the Softballcenter.com picture album of the ASA Super National

 

ASA Super National tournament info and bracket link

 

 

The season's long ASA Super division played their championship in Oklahoma City.  Only 3 teams qualified by entering the necessary 3 regular season tournaments and those 3 teams fought it out in one day to determine who would take home what portion of the $50,000 prize money.  $25,000 to 1st place.  $15,000 to 2nd place.  And $10,000 to 3rd place.  Parts of the last 3 games and the Long Haul Bomber finals will air on CBS Sports cable channel on October 5th and 6th.  Check your cable listings for details. 

ASA Super Rules:
 – It was a double elimination tournament.
 – There was bat testing with 20 bats kept in a bucket by home plate for each team.
 – 5 man crew of umpires for each game.
 – 16 Home Run limit per team. 
 – 75 foot bases
 – Run Rule was 20 after 4 innings and 15 after 5 innings
 – No stealing was allowed
 – 1-1 count with no foul after the 2nd strike
 – Players had to run the bases for homers in the last 3 games for CBSSports tv
 – Dudley Hycon 52/300 ball was used
 – Field dimensions were 325-350-415-400-377-365-325

The wind was blowing out to left field, I believe only two lefties hit a homer on the day.

Game 1 Sonny's vs Rip City Demarini boxscore link – Sonny's AJ Montano went 4-5 setting the table early and often for 3 hitter Brian Lipman who was 2-3 with 2 big homer's in the 1st and 2nd innings and 5 RBI.  Meanwhile Rip City just could not get the offense going early and struggled to get through the lineup with just 2 runs in the 2nd inning and zeroes in the 1st, 3rd, and 4th.  Rip City was playing catch up the rest of the way but closed the gap to 12-6 in the bottom of the 6th on 3 straight homers by Chris Greinert, Adam Rockoff, and Tim Bowser.  But Sonny's who hadn't scored in 3 innings themselves put up a 7 spot in the top of the 7th with a homer by Bubba Mack and an RBI triple by Chris Terry to put away Rip City 19-9 and advance to the winner's bracket championship game against Long Haul.

Game 2 Long Haul/H. Auto/Easton vs Sonny's boxscore link – The winner's bracket championship game started at 3 PM central.  Sonny's was the home team and scored in every inning against the heavy favorite Long Haul.  Sonnys led Long Haul 4-3 after 3 innings of play on homer's by Alexis Ramirez and Bubba Mack.  Long Haul tied the game in the top of the 4th inning on back to back doubles by Dale Brungardt and Mike Umschied.  In the bottom of the 4th though Sonny's picked up 6 base hits including a 2 run triple by lead off man AJ Montano to score 5 runs.  They followed up with 4 runs in the 5th when Nick Price homered and Kevin Ballard tripled, and put away Long Haul 21-6 by the run rule in the bottom of the 6th by scoring 8 runs on a homer by Brian Lipman, and the run rule homer by Alexis Ramirez!  Long Hauls offense just never did get started and Sonny's outplayed them on Offense, Defense, and Special Teams to win in dominating fashion.  Sonny's moved onto the Championship while Long Haul would have to beat Rip City and then Sonny's twice to win the 1st place prize money.

Game 3 Long Haul/H. Auto/Easton vs Rip City boxscore link – The loser's bracket championship game started at 5 PM central time with Long Haul jumping out to a 4-0 lead in the 1st inning on base hits by Baker, Wegman, a triple by Filby, and RBI singles by Kirby, Lloyd, and Brungardt.  Rip City didn't score until the bottom of the 2nd when Tim Bowser and Reggie Schulte homered.  Schulte also had a great home run robbing catch in LF in this game.  Long Haul then slowly pulled away with 3 runs in the 3rd, 3 runs in the 4th, and capped it with a 4 run top of the 7th.  Rip City could only muster 1 run per inning the rest of the way and lost 16-7 in an uneventful game.  Long Haul's Scott Kirby was 4-4 in the game.  Rip City actually out homered Long Haul 4-3.

Game 4 Sonny's vs Long Haul/H. AUto/Easton boxscore link – The first game of the championship started around 7 PM central time.  Both teams scored in every inning in a very entertaining game with lots of action, extra base hits, some good defensive plays (and some bad ones).  Sonny's was led by Bubba Mack who was 4-4 with 2 HR, 2 RBI, and 4 runs scored, Nick Price who was 3-5 with 2 HR and 5 RBI, Sam Christensen 4-5, Dan Bean 3-3, and Chris Terry 3-5 an HR and 5 RBI.  Long Haul had Bryson Baker and Brian Wegman who were each 4-5 each with 1 HR for Baker and 2 for Wegman.  Sonny's took the lead 16-15 in the top of the 5th and again in the top of the 7th.  But MVP Brian Wegman hit a walk off homer in the bottom of the 7th with 1 out after a single by Baker to win it and force the "if" game.   

Game 5 Championship game Long Haul/H. Auto/Easton vs Sonny's – It was ALL Long Haul from the start as they scored a whopping 21 runs in the top of the 1st inning late Friday night.  They had only scored 27 runs total in their first two games against Sonny's in the tournament.  Sonny's to their credit never gave up and answered with 7 runs in the bottom of the 1st and 6 in the 2nd but never could catch up and Long Haul won 36-19 in 5 innings to take home the $25,000 first place prize and the 2014 ASA Super National Championship!

Boxsxore for Long Haul in the final game.  13 Homers including 2 each by Baker, Clark, Kirby, Lloyd, Umschied, and Wegman

 

Scenic Chickasaw Bricktown ballpark – Long Haul pitching to Rip City

Long Haul players intense look as they are locked in a 1 run game to force the "if" game 

Eddie Wright was honored for his service by the 4 The Fallen team!

The crowd was spread out.  I unofficially counted 500 for the Bombers but they were coming and going 

throughout the 5 games.

Rip City center fielder Brian Zirkle almost comes away with the top play of the day

 


 

Video Highlites brought to you by:

 

 


 

ASA Super  National Final Standings & Awards

1) Long Haul/H. Auto/Easton 3-1
2) Sonny's 2-2
3) Rip City/Demarini 0-2

 

 

I don't see the awards listed anywhere but will post when I find them

Brian Wegman was offensive mvp and mvp

 


 

Team by team notes brought to you by:


 

1st Place – Long Haul/H. Auto/Easton

Super from MN  3-1 Record

Long Haul lost the opener in the winner's final to Sonny's only scoring 6 runs in the game and walked away wondering if they could ever score another big inning.  In the loser's final against Rip City their offense and defense were less than spectacular but they won.  In the championship against Sonny's in the first game they nearly lost when they were down 20-19 in the bottom of the 7th with 1 out and nobody on but Bryson Baker had a clutch single and MVP Brian Wegman hit the walk off.  In the night cap after the Long Haul Bomber finals, Long Haul busted out with 21 runs in the first inning and cruised to their 2nd ASA Super title in the last two years.

The defense was not crisp and they didn't have backup pitcher Billy Messina.  But they gutted out a poor offensive performance early on and busted out when the sun went down and did what they came to do.  Brungardt, Wegman, Filby, Kirby, Lloyd, and Baker with some big offensive numbers.

H. Auto sponsor Bob Hortenbach with ASA's Rich Cress

 


 

2nd Place – Sonny's

'A' from WY  2-2 Record

 

Sonny's played great in all 4 games they played.  The defense was strong with the left side of the infield especially (Christensen and Montano).  They added Bubba Mack from Resmondo and Brian Lipman from Team Combat to help power the offense which hit well top to bottom.  ASA doesn't give a defensive MVP but left fielder Nick Price could have easily won as he robbed two home run attempts early in the tournament and made some diving catches.  He also didn't misplay the knuckle balls like most of the outfielders in the tournament.  Sonny's were two outs away from winning the Super and should be proud of what they did.  They are a fun team to watch play with depth at pitcher and 17 players that can play the game at the highest level.  Montano, Mack, and Bean had some nice offensive numbers!  .547 team average is actually pretty good for that sized field and the fact they played Long Haul 3 out of the 4 games.

Nick Price is my pick for defensive MVP!

Brian Lipman provided the early power for Sonny's

Alexis Ramirez hit 2 big homer's against Long Haul in their winner's bracket championship victory

 


 

3rd Place – Rip City/Demarini

'A' from IA  0-2 Record

 

Rip City had the team offensively to compete but just couldn't get anything going with both of their games played before the sun went down.  The defense was ok with left fielder Noah Wethington tracking down everything in the "no mans land" left center field gap and Reggie Schulte robbing homers.  But they just could never put a big inning together in the two losses.  Zirkle, Rockoff, and Schulte had the only big averages and Tim Bowser hit 3 HR.

 

 


 

More pictures below


 

Hot Links section brought to you by:

 

I would like to thank all of my sponsors, ASA, and the SoftballCenter and Oldscout advertisers!

ASA Super tournament link

Link to Softballcenter.com pictures of the Super National

Send corrections to dw@softballcenter.com

Link to the SoftballCenter.com Youtube channel

 


 

Some more pictures for you:

Only 7% picked Sonnys who were 2 outs from winning the super!

Score of the final 'if' game of the championship

First game of the finals.  Long Haul had to score to tie or win in the bottom of the 7th!

These guys had the right idea.  ASA gave away free food and two drink tickets per person

 

52/300 Dudley ball used

The park had some great nooks and crannies

Main umpiring crew

A nice view and free beer

 

 

 

 

 

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