Let the fun begin.

Monday was a half day, wrapping up the pool play that started Sunday. The second half of the day was centered around the Opening Ceremonies at Central Park and was an interesting mixture of 18U and 12U teams.

The park was hopping again, similar to last week in that a legendary player—in this case Jessica Mendoza; last week it was Jennie Finch­­­­—spoke to the seemingly thousands of players, coaches, parents and other family members.

Jessica told a very good story about seeing video of herself when she was seven years old and the one thing that jumped out at her was the huge grin on her face. She may have been flailing legs, knees, arms and elbows, but running around the field she was having a blast.

And that’s what this event—and the sport—should be all about.

The boy band Midnight Run rocked the outdoor venue again and John Wayne’s son, Patrick, spoke about the Cancer Institute named after his father. That Institute is the beneficiary of donations made by individual teams who in term received pink armbands, so if you see those in photos or videos know that it was because of the team doing a great thing.

Now it’s crunch time because, starting Tuesday at 8 am PST, one loss you’re in the loser’s bracket… two, and you go home.

In this morning’s “primer” on the bracket play beginning tomorrow, especially around the 18U Premier teams, we provided the links to the brackets which the PGF organizers, especially PGF National Director Bret Denio, updates regularly.

This will be where you’ll want to follow the progress as the teams advance towards Saturday’s championship game.

There are so many great games early and so many compelling storylines it’s hard to know where to start, but that will be the fun of Tuesday through Thursday night.

Right now, a quick review of some news and notes picked up around the fields today (again, only a half day’s worth of games with the last one kicking off at 12:30 pm PST)…

 

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*** Rumor of the day: Tony Rico has built the Firecracker brand into a multi-state organization with teams covering Northern and Southern Calif. as well as Arizona and Texas. I believe I counted 10 teams alone in the three levels of PGF this week (18U Premier, 18U Platinum and 12U) so they are playing at a high level of talent and accomplishment

However, word going around the club coaches is that as many as 25 teams, mainly in Texas, could be dropping out of the Firecrackers’ program.

Without going into too much detail of what is supposedly going to happen or not happen, it sounds like it has to do with licensing fees. I haven’t been able to confirm this as being true or not with Tony, but more than a couple of coaches said they heard this… will definitely follow up soon.

 

*** Fun game to close out the last series of games as the So Cal A’s-Richardson team, which is trying to take a fifth straight PGF 18U Premier title, won a 1-0 walk-off game with the Carolina Elite as Tennessee-bound outfielder Brook Vines hit a single to knock in the only run of the day.

Both teams have to be happy with the outcome. The A’s will need shut-down pitching from Salina Ta’amilo (2014, UCLA) and/or Hayley Copeland (2014, South Carolina) if they are going to have a chance to repeat (and Katya Duvall, a 2015 pitcher committed to Ohio State might have something to say about this as well).

The pitching was strong, obviously, today against an excellent hitting team which bodes well for Elite too, because they have the bats but will need pitching like that seen today. Kudos to Cayla Drotar (2016, South Carolina) who looked strong in the circle to start the game.

Except she wasn’t wearing her regular jersey. Another pitcher of note, Matty Moss (2015, Tennessee) told me a car was broken into and three jerseys were stolen—Cayla’s and sisters Montana and Mia Davidson (both are going to Mississippi State with Montanta being a ’16 and Mia a ’17).

Be on the lookout for three Carolina Elite jerseys being sold on Ebay or the black market… numbers 6, 32 and 33. Really people???

 

*** If there is someone funnier in softball than Richard Shea, the head coach for the Birmingham Thunderbolts, I have yet to meet him (although Gary Haning comes up with some zingers when you least expect them).

Richard played defensive end at Auburn and is a self-admitted good ole boy from Alabama and much of what he says can’t be repeated on a family site such as this one, but he is doing something this week that has raised some eyebrows.

He said he has some “base cloggers” on this team, meaning players who aren’t the fastest of foot so he brought a speedy baserunner out to pinch run when needed. She is… wait for it… 11 years old.

Yep, Bailey Welch is a designated runner who’s on a Bolts 12U team but is seeing spot duty on a team comprised of girls six and seven years older than her. She even played some centerfield in one game so far.

Coach Shea says she is intelligent and speedy and deserves to be here. Another reason such a young player is on his team is because almost all of his other Bolts teams have played or will play in Nationals and he can’t bring anyone up elsewhere.

Shea and the 12U team was at the Opening Ceremonies tonight and came and went in style, in an SUV limo that was only matched in size by the Wichita Mustangs cooly decorated bus (check out our photo gallery Wed am which will have photos of the Mustang Mobile!).

 

*** There are eight play-in games tomorrow and there are some really good teams who’ll line up at 8 am because they lost the luck of the draw (unless they want the extra play, then they lucked out!).

The Originals, led by Paige Parker (2014, Oklahoma), will play the NC Lady Lightning which could roll out one of my favorite players, pitcher Regan Green (2015, Mississippi State), with the winner going against Jersey Intensity and probably starter Ally Frei (2014, Boston College).

Wow, three great arms and two of those teams will be in the loser’s bracket tomorrow night.

 

*** I like Gerry Quinn of the Illinois Chill, a nice guy who you have to feel bad for because he’s been at each of the five years of the PGF Nationals and this is the third time he’ll be in a play-in game.

And if he beats the Cruisers-Harman team—no small task—his Chill ladies get to play perennial power Gold Coast Hurricanes. Yikes.

The Hurricanes picked up another arm in Lele Ocasio, who 48 hours ago was leading Wagners Gold-Dunn to the ASA/USA 18U GOLD National Championship. Lele looked tired and was more than ready to hit the beach after the Canes early game today

 

*** Back to the Illinois Chill: it looks like Kiley Jones (2015, Loyola-Chicago) will get the start in the circle tomorrow and her pitching will be key, but keep an eye on Alex Martens (2016, Kentucky), the second baseman who Coach Quinn says is having a great summer.

“She’s one of the co-leaders on the team with seven home runs and is also hitting in the low .400’s,” he says. “Alex is going to be an unbelievable player in the SEC, she’s already really good defensively and is going to be six-feet tall. Every game she’s also getting a couple of hits.”

Northwestern-bound 2014’s Marrisa Panko, the shortstop, and Sabrina Rabin, an outfielder, set the table and if those two get on base, Martens hot bat could do some damage.

 

*** Another player who’s been hot all summer is Alex Sobczak (2015, Michigan), the third baseman for Finesse who her coach, Donny Dreher, says “is playing phenomenally. She’ll be an immediate impact player when she gets to Michigan.”

One player not on the Finesse this week is Sienna Surber, the 2014 catcher signed with Florida State. She’s already in Tallahassee as she left early to take classes.

 

*** There had been some talk that Taran Alvelo (2015, Washington), the outstanding pitcher with the Beverly Bandits-Conroy team, had been sick playing in the heat of Oklahoma at the ASA Nationals.

I had heard that the 100-plus heat had led to some serious dehydration issues, but she was on the mound pitching great today and if she was sick, it didn’t look like she had any long-lasting effects.

I was shooting some shots behind the backstop and some of her throws came in so hard I couldn’t see them the last few feet.

You’d have to think she’ll be the starter tomorrow in the Game of the Day—the Bandits versus the OC Batbusters-Haning squad. It starts at 2:45 pm PST on Field 4 at the Huntington Beach Complex.

One club coach joked today, “When was the last time you saw the title game played on the first day of bracket ball?” Both of these two teams could win it all, but it will be really tough coming out of the loser’s bracket.   Stay tuned.

 

*** I love the Cal Krytponite lime green jerseys which they’ll be wearing tomorrow.

As Recruiting Manager Derek Bowers, father of excellent 2015 outfielder Danielle Bowers going to Cal, said today: “We’re a young team and we told our girls early on, you’ll be known as the good team in the bright green jerseys or the bad team in the bright green jerseys. Fortunately, we’ve been able to be pretty good and it’s been a positive.”