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Men’s softball teams clash in Sioux Falls
DAVE MARTIN •
DAMARTIN@ARGUSLEADER.COM
Sioux Falls will continue to bask in the national softball limelight for the next two weekends, but this time it will be the men who are the headliners.
Forty teams from the U.S. and Canada hit the diamonds today through Sunday at Harmodon Park for the North American Fastpitch Association (NAFA) Men’s ‘A’ World Series, while 11 teams will be competing for the 23-under world series title starting Friday.
Championship games are set for Sunday at 3 p.m. for the ‘A’ teams and 4:45 p.m. in the 23-under division.
Next weekend, Aug. 13-16, there will be 20 teams in the ‘AA’ division and 44 teams in the ‘A’ major division battling for world series titles.
“It’s a big challenge for us to host these tournaments because we got into it late – just after Thanksgiving,” said event organizer Kerwyn Lykken, the state’s regional NAFA director.
“I got a call from the national office asking us to host it after they took the original bid away from Appleton, Wis., which didn’t follow through on promised field improvements.”
Lykken said the national office likes to locate the tournaments in the Midwest, due to geographical considerations and past success at sites such as Fargo; Mankato, Minn.; Des Moines, Iowa, and Eau Claire, Wis.
Teams competing in the ‘A’ division – the lowest of the five divisions (other than the 23-under group) – are expected from Canada and 13 states, including California, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Wisconsin and South Dakota.
Lykken said teams are placed in divisions according to the rating given their top pitcher.
“We (state commissioners) rate all the pitchers by observing them pitch and clocking their pitches with a radar gun and then placing their teams in the various divisions to try to make the playing field as level as possible,” he said.
Lykken said men’s fastpitch is especially strong in Canada, the Midwest and “hotbed” states of Wisconsin and California.
South Dakota will be represented by six teams: Crow Bar No. 2, Scarlett’s and Silver Stars, all from Sioux Falls; Young’s Prime No. 2 from Watertown and teams from Ramona and Freeman.