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PRESCOTT – The Houston Stars simply refused to act their age during the 50-and-over Men’s National Fast-Pitch Softball Tournament in Prescott.
And as a result they return home with the championship trophy after finishing off the San Diego Painters 10-2 in the “if necessary” game Sunday night before about 250 softball fans at Ken Lindley Field.
Courier photos/Jo.L.Keener
Houston pitcher/coach Bobby Smith, left, and his Stars got the better of 1st Team All-Tournament slugger Dave Chaves, below, and the Southern California Painters in Sunday’s championship at Lindley.
The term “return home” has a slightly different meaning for the Stars. This is a roster made up of players from Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, Missouri, Ohio and ... yes, even Texas.
But there was no mistaking their destination in the 16-team tourney. Especially after knocking off the defending runner-up team from San Diego 7-2 earlier in the day.
By doing that, Houston rested comfortably in the winner’s bracket while making San Diego play what would turn out to be three more games.
“I think throwing against them earlier in the day helped give me a better idea of what they were trying to do,” said Stars pitcher Sam Banegas, who won three games during the three-day tournament and was honored as the tourney’s MVP.
Meanwhile, San Diego left hander Cary Weiler simply didn’t have enough left in the tank by the time the “if necessary” game rolled around.
Weiler helped force the “if” game by beating Houston 6-3 earlier. But the Southern California squad could not come back with co-ace Peter Brown after Brown pulled a muscle while pitching his team past Minneapolis earlier in the day.
As a result Weiler wasn’t as sharp as usual. And as it did the entire tournament, Houston pounced on the opportunity.
First, it was second baseman Mike Hazel leading off the game with a triple and scoring on a groundout.
Two innings later the Stars took advantage of two costly San Diego errors, parlaying them into three runs on singles by Larry Moffett and Bob Sagle.
By that time it was 4-0 and Banegas wasn’t about to let it get any closer.
Also helping the Houston cause was the fact that they played errorless ball in all three Sunday games.
“We felt like we had a real good shot at winning the tournament,” Houston coach Bobby Smith said. “We beat a real good team and we beat them twice in the same day. And of course there was defending champion Minneapolis and Tulsa and just a lot of quality teams. It was a very good tournament.”
Houston has now had an entry in all five of the 50+ National Tournaments, with this being its first win after finishing second once and third another time.
Smith admits that the widespread nature of his roster doesn’t help continuity much. But it’s not as if this is a group of strangers either.
“We’ve played ball together our entire lives and have just been able to stay in touch with each other,” Smith said.
“Sure it makes things a little difficult as far as continuity and that type of thing. But the great thing about fast-pitch softball is that if you can gel together as people you can make it work, even if you don’t play together that often.”
It was San Diego that made it happen early in the previous game against Houston.
After right fielder and Phoenix resident Paul Rubin tripled and scored on a Mike Salsedo single to put San Diego up 1-0 they never looked back. Rubin had a triple, single and two RBIs in that one and was awarded for having the tournament’s highest batting average, .589.
The Prescott Old Timers ran into a couple of buzzsaws after surprising the tourney field by winning their first two games.
After that, however, the locals didn’t score a run, capped off by an 11-0 elimination loss to Minneapolis early Sunday.
Minneapolis, which finishes third in the tournament, scored four times in the first inning. That was plenty for the pitching duo of Leroy Jolstad and Dave Baake.
Prescott could muster just three singles in the game, one each from shortstop Larry Stephan, catcher Rick Leithead and third baseman John Teeter.
On the whole, the tournament had to be a huge success for Regional Director A.C. Williams.
The quality of play was solid, attendance was higher than expected, controversies and injuries were at a minimum and the weather could not have been better.
“It was a very competitive tournament,” Williams said. “You look at teams like Madison, Wisc., (Everett) Washington, Santa Barbara ... those were all quality teams, but none of them did much winning. I would say that 10 of the 16 teams were very competitive. That’s not too bad.”
And it gave a lot of fast-pitch junkies of yesteryear a chance to relive some memories, while creating a few new ones.
“Even after the games were over Friday night, nobody wanted to leave the park,” Williams said.
“They just sat here and talked. I think that indicates that 50-and-over is kind of a reunion thing, and that’s a lot of fun for everybody.”
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