​Pictured: Cassidy Clark, a shortstop for the Harger 18U Gold team.

There are some big club organization names dotting the roster of the Dirtdogs/Team Mizuno Fall Showcase which will take place a week from Saturday--September 19 and 20 in Hanford, Calif. about 30 miles south of Fresno.

Names like the OC Batbusters, Firecrackers, So Cal A’s, KG Hitters, All American Sports Academy and, we can’t leave out, the host Dirtdogs.

Not bad for just a second year event.

​​FloSoftball will be at the Dirtdogs Team Mizuno Fall Showcase streaming games live.... Join Now to make sure you catch all the action!

There will be 36 teams covering the 18U, 16U and 14U age divisions (see the list below) and after a small, but successful initial event last fall, the Dirtdogs Team Mizuno Fall Showcase has literally tripled in size.

 “The first year went awesome,” says Marco Vazquez, a coach in the Dirtdogs organization and the Event Director for the Showcase. “We had 12 teams at two fields and had some good teams like the KG Hitters and Case Batbusters, but we intentionally kept it small.”

“However, it went so well last fall that there were a lot more coaches who wanted to come this year and only way was to accommodate them was to make the event bigger.”

There’s a camp that will take place on Friday the 18th at the Hanford Sports Complex—same site as the Fall Showcase and where FloSoftball will be streaming games—and nearly 150 players have registered.

College coaches from as far away as Florida (Central Florida) and Ohio (Ohio State) will be among 25 different universities expected to attend with many California schools signed up including Cal-Berkeley and almost the entire Big West Conference.

The showcase format guarantees each team will play five games: three on Saturday and two on Sunday.  There will also be inter-pool games for the older teams.

The event has been in the planning for a year, according to Vazquez and he’s quick to give credit to Russ Heffle, the President of the Dirtdogs, and Jeff Harger, one of the organization’s founders.

Both are coaches in the Dirtdog program and Vazquz says both have been “instrumental in the success and growth of the event.

The reason for the event is clear.

“I want to say afterwards that four or five kids overall got scholarships because they played at this event,” the coach states.  “This is the perfect time to do this too, for me, as my daughter, Alyssa, is graduating from high school next year and will be going to Cal St Northridge where she’ll play for Tairia Flowers. Then, I start over with my seven year old Carmen.”

There are several pluses to the event according to Vazquez.

“The big thing we do is we try to keep a good player-to-coach ratio,” he explains. “We don’t want it to get too big where that ratio isn’t met.  We don’t want to be so big that a team plays and doesn’t see a college coach the entire weekend or has to play at one location and then travel to the next game 30 miles away.”

“We have three locations and the furthest is five minutes away.”

Another benefit is that the Dirtdogs Team Mizuno Fall Showcase is centrally located in Central California.  

“We’re three hours from the Bay Area, three hours from Southern California and three hours from Northern California.  We’re directly in the middle.”

Already looking ahead, Vazquez says next year’s event will probably move to a site in Fresno that has 10 fields on one complex and all are fenced with one big stadium with raised seating, ideal to produce an All-Star game.

“Next year’s plan is to do a cream-of-the-crop camp and All-Star game where the college coaches can watch and the players can feel like they’re on a big platform.”

The reason for looking ahead, the coach continues, is because “we’re trying to build relationships with organizations that will stay with us for the next couple of years.”

And if the trend continues and the event triples again, watch out for the 102 team Dirtdog Team Mizuno Fall Showcase in 2016!

5 Teams & Players to Watch

1. at the 16U level, the San Jose Sting have moved up from 14U where it finished 2nd at the TC/USA Nationals.
2. the LTG Lions are a “scrappy little team with a lot of talent” according to Coach Vazquez and are coached by Jim Carda, father of UCLA All-American pitcher Ally Carda.
3. the 16U level also has the So Cal Dirtdogs-Del Camp team which features 2020 pitcher Devyn Netz, a 13-year-old, 5-foot-8 pitcher throwing 57 with “awesome movement.”  According to Vazquez, “colleges are already asking about her and this will be the first weekend that schools are going to see her.  She’s going to blow up.”
4. the Dirtdogs/Team Mizuno-Davila has pitcher Linnay Wilson who’s “on the radar” over several Western teams including Washington, Utah, Fresno State and BYU.
5. Jeff Harger’s Central California Dirtdogs 18U team includes second base/outfielder Kaitlyn Coffman, a 2018 player committed to Ohio State as well as Analiese Raley, a 2018 catcher who’s verballed to Nebraska.

Participating Teams – 14U

1. Dirtdogs/Team Mizuno Davis
2. California Destroyers-Coverdell
3. San Jose Sting
4. So Cal Athletics-Garcia/Rascon
5. Dirtdogs/Team Mizuno-Lee  
6. Dirtdogs/Team Mizuno-Select
7. Dirtdogs/Team Mizuno-James

Participating Teams – 16U

1. Dirtdogs/Team Mizuno-Heffley
2. Fresno Force-Pruneda
3. San Jose Sting-Perales
4. OC Batbusters-Perez
5. Dirtdogs/Team Mizuno-Davila
6 . So Cal Dirtdogs-Del Campo
7.  LTG Lions-Carda
8  OC Batbusters-alvarez
9. Firecrackers AZ-Holand
10. Nor Cal Dirtdogs-Cobian
11. Nor Cal Fircrackers-Sjolie
12. Cal Thunder-Jiminez
13. So Cal Athletics-Okabe/Rascon
14. Clovis Rockets 16G

Participating Teams – 18U

1. Dirtdogs/Team Mizuno-Harger 

2. Firecrackers-Brashear/Black

3. OC Batbusters-Perez 

4. All American Sports Academy-Harrison

5. Case Batbusters 

6. KG Hitters-Stone

7. Firecrackers-Brashear/Gutierrez

8. San Jose Sting 18 Gold-Perales

9. Nor Cal Firecrackers-Silvan

10. So Cal Dirtdogs 18U-Rojas/Vazquez

11. Dirtdogs/Team Mizuno-Duke

12. Firecrackers-Redmond

13. Fiecrackers-Brashear/Red

14. Teamsmith-Juarez

15. So Cal Athletics-Vasquez