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No, the Texaco Pirates of Man-O-War Bahamas are not in this one, though we understand that one of their regular pitchers, Edney Bethel is pitching on a team that has won the tournament previously.

Speaking of the Pirates, it looks like they will be featured in the next issue of Softball Magazine, along with a story on the 2007 ISC II Tournament of Champions from Kitchener. It’s due out shortly at newstands and to subscribers. If you don’t subscribe and want to, visit their website, www.softballmag.com

Softball Nationals Begin Thursday
By Gerrino Saunders

The Bahamas Softball Federation will host its 2007 National Championship this weekend beginning on Thursday October 18th to Sunday October 21st at the Blue Hills Sporting Complex. Championship teams from Andros, Long Island, Eleuthera, Abaco, Grand Bahama, New Providence will slug it out for the national fast pitch crown. The weekend of the 2006 men’s nationals held in Eleuthera was marred by relentless rainstorms, but through it all Eleuthera defeated New Providence for the title. The federation, coaches and players are hoping for much better weather this year. Friday’s weather is predicted to be perfect with partly sunny skies and winds up to 14 km/h. On Saturday the forecast reads clouds and sun with possible thunderstorms, and on Sunday the things are expected to improve with a mixed bag of sun and clouds with winds up to 12 km/h. The defending men’s national champions are from Savannah Sound, Eleuthera.

On the women’s side a national championship was supposed to be decided between the Electro Telecom Wildcats and the Grand Bahamian champions, the Triple Play Pearls The 2007 tournament robin is being held in honour of Arthur Thompson a member of the International Softball Hall of Fame. He is also the rules interpreter for the local federation and he is an internationally certified softball instructor. Thompson will share his honour with Beulah Kelley, a long time veteran pitcher with the women’s national team. According to the Tournament Director, Burkette Dorsett, the tournament will take the format that is used in international play, which allows the top four teams from the men and ladies division to play in a sudden championship series the same week.
The round robin portion of the tournament will end on the morning of Saturday October 20. The Sudden death round would begin on Saturday. Some of the teams that will compete at the Nationals include the D’s Truckers who defeated the New Breed for the New Providence men’s title. After both the men and women’s championship series in the Grand Bahama Amateur Softball Association became entangled in a controversy, the BSF stepped in and determined that the BTC Rockets men and women’s teams would represent Grand Bahama at the Nationals.
The BTC Lady Rockets were leading The Bahamasair Flyers in their best of seven series three games to two, while the Bommer George Swingers trailed the BTC men’s squad three games to none after they refused to play because one of their coaches was “unfairly” suspended for three games.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 8:08 am and is filed under International, Tournaments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.