2002 NSA AA Super World Series
Chase/Reece/Roosters/Easton finally put it together as I thought they would do all season, but struggled most of the season, but won the “Big Prize”, the NSA AA Championship. The Chase boys have a lot of talent and this might not be their only championship this season. Chase was led by MVP Dennis Rulli, who hit and played extremely well on defense. Dennis has been one of the better infielders in “Big Time” softball for a lot of years. Chase picked up veteran Dale Sensenig, and he paid big dividends as he was a big factor in this win, as he hit it and played extremely well on defense. This ball club has some veterans who know how to win and some very good young players who can flat out play the game. Great job Chase!! Finishing in 2nd. place was Phonemasters/K&G/Sports/TPS who is another very good team who have struggled some this season and showed at times to be very good. The K&G boys battled to the finish. They won the first game of the Championship, but fell short in the “if” game. Third place went to Lighthouse Baptist/Sports/Schwing/TPS who played good all season and is a much better team than most people think. They can play with any of the AA or A teams in the country. They have some very talented players. Fourth place went to Mountain Top/Advance/USA Cash/TPS who no doubt are a Top 15 team and will be a contender every time out. They have some players who know how to win. I know they didn’t have all of their own players this weekend, but you have to play with what you have, and sometimes that’s not good enough and this week it wasn’t. Make no mistake they are a very good team. I will go on record saying that “this is the best field of teams in AA play this season. There were no weak sisters in this one, I guarantee you. I know if you could get the 17 teams in my Top 15 other than the three Supers, Backman/Dan Smith, Long Haul and Hague/Resmondo to play in whatever you want to call it AA or A, you would have one hell of a tournament. I am sure you could not pick the winner if they played ten weekends and I’ll bet there would be 8 or 9 different winners”.
I would like to say a special thank you to Lonnie for the great job he did running the NSA “AA” Worlds and for putting the scores and results of the tournament on Message Board all weekend long. This was a great one, it doesn’t get any better than this, some great games played by some great teams!! Good Luck to everyone this weekend in the ISA Super Worlds and the USSSA Class A World.