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The annual Tartan Tournament was hosted by the Central Scotland Softball League at Lochinch Playing Fields in Pollock Country Park in Glasgow on the weekend of 31 May-1 June, and the title was won in thrilling walk-off fashion by the Hairy Coos, who beat the Souls 10-9 in an extra-inning final.
Ten teams entered the tournament, nine from Glasgow and Edinburgh plus one team from Dublin. After beautiful sunny weather on Sunday, conditions reverted to the more typical Glaswegian clouds and rain on Sunday.
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Results
The final results were:
Cup Champion: Hairy Coos
Cup Runner-up: Souls
Cup Final MVPs: Sara Deauville and Scott Spurlock (Hairy Coos)
Plate Champion: Honey Badgers
Plate Runner-up: Doh'nuts
Plate Final MVPs: Chelsea Koehler and Paul Sweeney (Honey Badgers)
The tournament organisers take up the story:
Saturday
The weather gods were kind to us on the first day of our annual Tartan Tournament, with the sun filling the sky. The 10 teams, from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin, were divided into two groups, with each group completing a round-robin on Saturday.
Between games on Saturday, players and teams attended batting clinics held by GB Slowpitch Team Coach Sara Vertigan. The feedback from these sessions was brilliant and players left with a greater understanding of their swing and areas to focus and improve on. Training of this calibre is rare up North, so it was fantastic to have Sara on board to pass on her knowledge.
At the end of Day 1, the Legends of Filth were unbeaten and leading the way in Group 1 and the Hairy Coos were also unbeaten and at the top of Group 2.
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Home Run Derby
After the round-robin games were completed on Saturday, the teams carried the fun and competition on into the evening. Our first-ever Home Run Derby was held on our fully-fenced Diamond 1, with two male and two female players from every team competing.
The competition started with the men stepping up to the plate. All of the men put on a good show, with James MacKay from the Legends and Ross Thompson from the Hairy Coos advancing to the final.
Before the men’s final it was the women's turn to show what they are made of.
Home plate was moved forward to reduce the home run distance and, as with the men, the women put on a fantastic show. A tie-breaker was required to separate Autumn Childs-Grove from the Legends and Anna O’Donnell from the Hairy Coos, leading to a one-pitch swing-off. Whoever could hit the ball furthest on one pitch would advance to the final against Deborah Wilson from the Honey Badgers. Anna came out of the swing-off victorious.
With the Home Run King and Queen titles on the line, the women went straight into the final, which consisted of three pitches each. Whoever could hit the most home runs would win the crown. Anna O'Donnell took her three pitches first and came very close, but could not get one over the fence, so Deborah Wilson knew that if she could hit one over the fence the crown would be hers. She went close on the first two pitches but not close enough. But with the pressure on, Deborah sent a home run over the fence on the final pitch to seal the title of the Tartan Tournament Home Run Queen.
Now it was time to find the King. The format for the men’s final was the same and Ross Thompson from the Coos hit first. Similar to his Hairy Coos' teammate Anna O'Donnell, he came very close on all three pitches but could not quite get it over the fence. James MacKay took to the plate and hit a booming home run to left centre field to seal the title of Tartan Tournament King.
The King and Queen received their crowns and a bottle of celebratory bubbly in front of a great crowd.
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Sunday
With group play finished, the tournament split up into the Cup and Plate competitions for the final day. Unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worse, with rain showers lasting most of the day.
The Cup competition included Hairy Coos, Legends of Filth, Rally Caps and Souls and the Plate competition included Doh’Nuts, Honey Badgers, AJs, Sons of Pitches, Vandals and Highland Chargers.
Once a round-robin for each level had been completed with games against teams from the other first round group, the bottom two teams in the Plate compeition, AJs and Vandals, competed in the Wooden Spoon final. Vandals won the game, leaving the AJs to take home the Wooden Spoon.
Plate playoffs
The two semi-finals in the Kelvin Plate competition pitted Honey Badgers against Sons of Pitches and Doh’Nuts against Highland Chargers. The Honey Badgers advanced to the final in a closely- fought game, with one run the difference between the two teams. Doh’Nuts sealed their place in the Plate final with a confident win against the Highland Chargers, and the result was a repeat of last year’s Kelvin Plate final between the Honey Badgers and the Doh’Nuts.
The weather started to dry up leading into the Kelvin Plate final and Honey Badgers took control of the game early, gaining a strong lead. The Doh’nuts put up a great fight, but the defense of the Badgers was dominant and the final score was Honey Badgers 5, Doh’nuts 1. The MVPs from the final were Chelsea Koehler and Paul Sweeney from the Honey Badgers.
Cup playoffs
In the two semi-finals in the Clyde Cup, Souls met Legends of Filth and the Rally Caps played the Hairy Coos.
Both semi-finals were very closely-fought games. The Legends took the lead early on against Souls and managed to maintain it for most of the game. But a costly slip on muddy ground in left field led to a Souls grand slam which put them one run ahead and the Souls held on to the lead to book their place in the Clyde Cup final.
The Rally Caps came out strongly against the Hairy Coos, holding them scoreless for the first three innings and taking the lead. But the Coos tied the score at 2-2 in the top of the fourth inning, and then Anna O’Donnell came up with a clutch hit in the top of the sixth to drive in two runs with two out and give the Coos a 6-4 lead.
Due to the timed nature of the semi-final, however, the Coos' lead was in jeopardy, because the score would revert to the previous inning unless they could complete the sixth inning and keep the Rally Caps off of the board in less than 10 minutes. Some strong and fast defensive work meant the game was completed within the time restriction and the Coos advanced to the final to meet the Souls.
The final
The drama and excitement of the semi-finals turned out to just be a warm-up for what the final had in store.
Some strong defensive work from both sides kept the game fairly close over the first two innings, but then a massive two-run home run from the Coos' Scott Spurlock in the bottom of the third gave the Coos the lead and the momentum early in the game.
The drama really started to unfold in the later innings. Momentum went back and forth and finally swung in favour of the Souls, who had a two-run lead going into the bottom of the seventh inning. With one out, the Souls looked ready to close the game out. But Anna O’Donnell of the Coos had other ideas. With runners on second and third, Anna came up with a massive two-run double to tie the game and take it to extra innings.
Going into the top of the eighth inning, the Coos' pitcher had to leave in order to get back home to London. This meant relief pitcher Ross Thompson came in but struggled to find the strike zone. Scott Spurlock then stepped up to save the day for the Coos. Even though Scott was pitching for only the second time in his softball career, he settled into the game quickly.
In accordance with tie-breaker rules Shauna Wardrope of the Souls started on second base as the eighth inning began, and some good hitting from the Souls managed to score Shauna and load the bases. But Scott Spurlock and the Coos managed to get out of the inning with just the one run allowed.
In the bottom of the eighth, Tzana Jordan started as the tiebreak runner on second base but the first two Coos batters failed to reach base or advance the runner. With the game on the line, Ross Thompson headed to the plate and hit a first-pitch line drive to right field, scoring the tying run. But the Souls managed to get the third out and take the game into the ninth inning.
The Souls started strongly in the top of the ninth, and put runners on first and third with two out. The next batter hit a swinging bunt down the third base line. It was a race between the Coos' third baseman and Souls base runner Ruth Macintosh to home plate. But the ball was scooped towards Coos' catcher Nicky Jemmett, who applied a text book tag to get the final out.
The Coos then headed to the plate in the bottom of the ninth knowing that one run would make the game theirs. Sara Deauville started as the tie-break runner on second base and Ryan Smart headed to the plate with an excited crowd looking on – and promptly lined a ball over the Souls' left fielder for a walk-off game-winning hit.
Final score: Hairy Coos 10, Souls 9. It was a great end to a fantastic game which was well played by both teams. Clyde Cup final MVPs were Sara Deauville and Scott Spurlock from the Hairy Coos.
Thanks
We would like to say a massive thank you to all of the teams who attended, in particular the Sons of Pitches for travelling all the way from Dublin.
We also want to thank our sponsor, Wilks Sports, for the kind raffle donations from the Baseball Softball Shop, and Duncan Gray for photographing the event.
More photos from the event can be found here : http://duncolm.smugmug.com/Softball/Tartan-Cup-2014/.
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