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FALLS, S.D. (NewsDakota.com) – We put together a softball team to go to the 18U Northern National Tournament in Sioux Falls last week. We played as Xtreme North Dakota as we had girls from Valley City, Bismarck, Kindred and Hankinson playing with us.
It was a really good tournament and experience for these girls. Going in we didn’t know exactly what to expect, some of us had been to the 16U Northern Nationals in Wisconsin a couple of years ago and knowing that Sioux Falls hosts a couple of huge tournaments throughout the summer we had some expectations, but you still never know until you get to these things exactly what it is going to be. With teams from Kansas, Wisconsin, Illinois, South Dakota, Minnesota, North Dakota we got to see a little bit of the country you could say.
We started pool play on Thursday morning at 8:00 against and are team, the Sioux Falls Diamond Xtreme. The Diamonds eventually ended up in 3rd place when the entire tournament was over so that might tell you a little bit about what we went up against.
In our 2nd game of pool play we played the Lawrence Kansas Phoenix-Flyers. The Phoenix had played in over 70 games this season as they just travel to tournaments throughout the country to play and get exposure for the girls to college coaches. The Phoenix were very impressive, as they came in with quite a show of fan support and coaches and the players knew exactly what they were there to do.
After pool play we were 0-2 going into the bracketing for the double elimination tournament that was held Thursday night after the Parade of teams and the gift exchange where teams exchange gift bags. Our bags had stuff from our local communities that we wanted to share with our exchange partner.
For bracket play we ended up playing one of the undefeated and #1 teams in the tournament, the Lawrence Kansas Phoenix-Flyers.
Friday morning at 8:00 we line up across the field from the Lawrence Phoenix-Flyers and take them on head on. In what ended up being a very exciting game we came out the winners and moved on into the winners side of the double elimination tournament. This was a huge bonus for us in that it 1 guarantees us an extra game and we are also on the winners side and don’t have to play any double backs or at least not right away.
In our next game we got lined up against eventual tournament champion Bo Diddley’s from St Cloud MN. Bo Diddley’s is again another strictly travel team that plays tournaments year round and prepares their girls to play at the next level. 5 of Bo Diddley’s girls already had 1 year of college under their belts and the other 6 had already signed with a college and would be starting this fall. There was a noticeable difference in the 2 teams, in football they often say it was Men against Boys and in Softball it would be the same for this game as the Bo Diddley Women overwhelmed our Xtreme Girls. They hit it farther and harder, ran and threw faster and were much more experienced. But I want to give our girls some credit, although they No-Hit us, we threw everything we had at them and battled all the way.
In what ended up being our final game of the tournament we now started our double back with a 1-1 record. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately we got to play an old rival in the West Fargo Impact. The impact, although a North Dakota area team are another of the teams that travels to some tournaments throughout the summer and had a little bit more experience than we did as they also had a couple of college freshman playing for them as well, that along with their previous tournament experience and our playing back to back games in the SD heat didn’t help us give them the game either coach expected. We gave them too many free bases and like all good teams they capitalized and put free runs on the board.
The girls then took in some more softball and the sights and sounds of Sioux Falls as the Empire Fair started Friday evening to fulfill their experience.
I want to thank the players, parents, coaches, our softball boosters from Valley City and Hankinson and the Valley City Assembly of God Church for the use of their van in making this trip possible.
This weekend we have a 16U Xtreme team that will be playing in the Can/Am tournament in Jamestown.