2005 Last Chance NIT

Northwest Pipe/3N2/Easton showed why if you play in a NIT Super Tournament you have a chance to win. The “pipe boys” not only won this Last Chance tourney, they beat the #1 team in the country twice. I’ve been going over in my mind and talked to Hank Bassett and a few others to see when the last time a Class A team won a Super NIT with two or more super teams entered. Here’s what I came up with; the last time was in 1996 in Nashville, Tenn. in the USSSA NIT Worth Tournament. Jerry Backman’s team called Backstop/Easton won that tournament by beating Rich Superior in the finals. Lighthouse/Worth and a couple other super teams played in that tournament. This Pipe team is a very scrappy bunch, who played in a lot of big time tournaments. I’m one who believes it helps A teams to play much better when they play against their own competition. I have never been a big fan of the restricted homerun tournaments, but I’m here to tell you it is the only way that these lesser teams have any chance of winning against the big teams or winning a NIT with the super teams in it, it’s that simple on 300′ fields. The ‘pipe boys’ hit it good all weekend and played great defense to get this win. Larry and his boys deserved the highest credit for this great win. Larry has been sponsoring teams for many, many years and he deserves this one. Great job guys and good luck in the Class A Worlds. Second place went to Resmondo/Dan Smith/Menosse, who just didn’t get it done in this one. To all you critics who want to knock me about saying this “MAYBE” the best team ever, I say I’m still on the right line. Remember this, none of the great past teams had to play restricted homerun tournaments all season long. The only restrictions in the past were when they used the six and four homerun hitters. Remember also that those past teams didn’t use 80′ and 90′ bases. I still believe this is one of the better teams ever and so is the Bell Corp team. I also believe that 7 or 8 of the A teams playing today are better than some of the past A teams, that is just my opinion. Third place went to Cal’s, a B team who just played great ball this weekend and upset some of the better teams on route to the third place finish. This is great for softball. I’m glad to see teams like this play well in these big Super NIT’s. Good luck fellas on the rest of the season. Fourth place went to Team Stucco, who played in this one short a couple of their best players. Make no mistake this Stucco team, who has already won one Class A World, the NSA, will be setting their sites on the next one, the USSSA Class A Worlds in two weeks. Good job guys!!

The season of the NIT’s is over, and now it’s time to see who the “best of the best” are. The USSSA Class A Worlds is next, the ISA, the NSA AA, ASA East & West, the WSL/Miken Championships, the NSA Super and the USSSA Super. We will see where all the top teams stack up after all these are played. It should be interesting. I would like to commend Tony Dedonatis on running, as usual the excellent NIT in Sterling Heights. I also want to thank Jim McCarron for his tremendous effort on posting scores and highlights all season in all the USSSA NIT’s. Thanks again Jim, a great job and well appreciated.