Report by DW for SoftballCentral.com
The 35th Annual Corky’s Early Bird ASA Super Qualifier played to an expected finish as Long Haul/H Auto/Easton went an undefeated 5-0 and continued their domination tour of the United States slowpitch scene. Long Haul (aka Laservision) won their second ASA Super Qualifer (first was in Oklahoma) by defeating Xtreme/Miken 22-12 in the winner’s bracket championship game Sunday morning and former Corky’s champ Sonny’s 32-22 in the final game on Sunday afternoon!
The tournament began on Friday night with 149 total teams across 5 divisions and the tournament was played for the Owatonna Youth Sports Scholarship fund charity! In the Super Qualifier bracket there were 22 quality teams with just two teams starting out on Friday night – Line Drive Sportz an ‘A’ team from Michigan and HMC/Easton from Minnesota. Line Drive was nearly upset as they struggled by hitting into multiple doubleplays and squeaked out a 6-4 victory with the wind blowing in and a decent sized crowd on hand on the main field – Fairgrounds #1.
The majority of teams started on Saturday morning when the tournament resumed. The temperatures were in the 40’s and 50’s all weekend and on Saturday the wind played havoc with the game scores as it blew in on the main field F1 and F4, but out on F2 and F3 at 10 – 18 mph. The rains did stay away. One of the great things about Minnesota is the fans all play the game and are very nice. The players and teams love to drink beer and sit back and take in a ball game while they wait for their teams next game. One vocal crowd member on Sunday was even a big Helmer fan!
Besides Long Haul and ‘A’ favorites like Sonny’s, Rip City, and Line Drive, the Corky’s Super bracket featured the last 3 ASA ‘B’ National champions in Precision (2011), Xtreme/Miken (2012), and Heartland Investors (2013).
The tournament continued on Saturday morning with 6 more play-in games, and most of the favorites won with Tryon Gym beating Whalers 13-12 on a walk off. In the round of 16 all of the favorites won again – Heartland, Xtreme, Sonny’s, Rip City, Precision, Long Haul, Line Drive, and T’s 13 which set up some big final 8 matchups. Long Haul used their defense to shut down Precision late in the game with the wind blowing in to win. T’s 13 used some more homers from Chaun Demars to beat Line Drive 15-4. Xtreme/Miken sent Heartland to the loser’s bracket 29-17 in a battle between the last two ASA ‘B’ champs. And in one of the better games of the day, Rip City outslugged Sonny’s in a marathon game 39-31 back on field #4.
In the final 4 of the winner’s bracket Long Haul again needed some late defense to keep T’s 13 from pulling off a big upset to move to the finals. And late Saturday night in a shootout on the show field, Rip City/Demarini beat Xtreme/Miken 17-16 on a walk off two out bases loaded single by Brandon Bartels. While the two teams were shaking hands after the game the Xtreme team asked the umpires if the runner going to second base ever touched the bag. Remember each player must touch the next bag to prevent a force play which would have been the third out. The umpires gathered and decided the runner going from first to second did not touch second. The game went to overtime tied at 16-16 and Xtreme ended up winning 21-17 in the 8th inning to move on to Sundays winner’s bracket championship game.
In that winner’s final, Long Haul jumped out to a 19-6 lead after 4 innings as Brandon Dillon who already had a grand slam in the bottom of the first inning, added to his day with 3 more singles. Mike Umschied hit two homers, and Kirby, Wegman, Filby, and Helmer were all 3-4. They finished off Xtreme by the run rule 22-12 in five innings. 4 hitter Dustin Palm was 3-3 with a homer and 4 RBI for Xtreme.
Meanwhile Sonny’s ran the loser’s bracket beating Outpost and Team Stoop on Saturday night and T’s 13, Rip City, and Xtreme on Sunday morning to make it to the championship. In the Xtreme game which was the loser’s bracket championship, Sonny’s had a 13 run inning and run ruled Xtreme. In the finals though Sonny’s grounded into a couple of doubleplays against Long Haul early on and trailed 19-0 after two innings. Long Hauls lineup was onbase 19 of their first 25 plate appearances with 6 homers including 3-3 with 2 homers and a double from leadoff man Bryson Baker. Sonny’s would mount a 10 run inning in the 4th to extend the game but Long Haul won by the run rule.
Overall the tournament was well played in very cold weather and heavy wind conditions. The main field had lower scores on Saturday which made for some close games and allowed for some great defense. Then on the back fields there were some shootouts like BBS/All Americans win over Line Drive and Rip City’s win over Sonny’s. A number of teams had a legitimate chance to beat Long Haul but could not muster any offense in the late innings. When two ASA Super Series teams played each other a 16 home run rule was used. When a Super Series vs a non-Super Series game was played, 12 homers were used. When two non-Super Series teams played each other there were 8 homers allowed per team.
More photos can be found at:
http://www.facebook.com/softballthreesixty
http://www.softballcenter.com/2014-corkys-asa-super-tournament-report/
