ASA Super Beaumont, TX

Hot, humid Beaumont, Texas was the setting for this WSL/ASA Super B,C,D & Women’s Qualifier. US Vinyl/Z-Wear/Anaconda/Miken won it’s 2nd. WSL Tournament of the year as they rolled through this event. Fourteen teams battled through the hot and humid weekend to try an earn berths for both the ASA and the WSL World Tournaments, along with 16 women’s teams and 30 some C & D teams. In the Open Division the US/Vinyl Miken Boys were just too much for the rest of the field. US Vinyl was led by “Big RJ Howerton” who has become one of the top hitters in the game. Make no mistake RJ can flat out hit the ball, not only homeruns, but base hits and hits it very hard. I don’t care what bat he swings, he is a “pure hitter”. This week the Miken boys were hitting it very good on the 325′ fields all the way around. Their shortstop Dennis Shrum can flat-out pick it and has made this team much better on defense, also adding to the offense. “Big” Jeff Ott is coming back slowly from his injured shoulder that he hurt back 2 or 3 weeks ago and will be getting a little help through the month of June, as the Miken boys will not be playing until the Little Rock tournament July 4th weekend. Jeff should be back at full strength by then. Congratulations on the win to the Miken team!! Second place went to a Class A team out of Houston, Texas called Meridian Softball, who doesn’t get out of Texas very much, but believe me can play with any of the A teams in the country. They picked up the berth to the WSL World Tournament this weekend and will get a $5,000 check for travel expenses in Panama City. This bunch hits it very good, has enough pop and plays very good defense to be a strong contender for an A National Championship this year. Congratulations, and I’m looking forward to seeing you down the road. Third place went to Absolute/BEP, who battled back through the loser’s bracket after getting beat by US Vinyl early on and were able to win a few games before losing the WSL berth and a $5,000 game against Meridian. The Texas boys played hard all the way through, squeaking out a win against Capital/Miken Sat. night when Kenny Scobee hit a walk-off 3 run homer to win that game and get them to Sunday. Good job boys!! Fourth spot went to a very good B team out of Texas called Sporting Wood who gave everybody they played this weekend a very tough time, and looked to me to be a very competitive B team. The Maverick’s, the Gambler’s, Capital/Miken, Pain Killer’s, Right On and Team 8/Miken gave a good effort in this very good tournament. The automatic ASA Super Berth went to Absolute/BEP because Meridian chose to take the Class A berth for the ASA. I want to say a very god job done by the ASA Texas umpires, and also to my friend Frank Neal and his whole staff who did a very good job running this tournament, because without guys like Frank you don’t get these very good tournaments.