The absolute best brand of Senior Softball competition

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1 Submitted by Duane Jones; awards pics courtesy of Frank Straub The absolute best brand of Senior Softball competition to be found anywhere in the US. Florida Half Century is leading the way. Florida Half Century came together with Harbortown Canaveral and Softball Magazine on June 25th and June 26th to have a great softball filled weekend. Winning teams from each bracket received an engraved Louisville Slugger bat commemorating the tournament and custom designed Beach Bash t-shirts. MVPs of each game - all 120 of them - received a cumulative $5,000 worth of awards from tournament sponsors Miken Sports and 3N2 Sports. Good weather and a great environment made this a fantastic weekend at the beach. We start our tour of the Cocoa, Cocoa Beach, and Merritt Island area with a brief stopover at Mitchell Ellington Park for the top end of the brackets Bracket #1 was led once again by Mike Pilver s Tapley Striping team as they went 4-0 for the weekend and took home the prizes. The guys from Southwest Florida Softball Club led by Page 20 Softball Magazine Issue

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3 Chris Lopez bested a good field of competition and slipped past the Boyz of Summer in a hotly contested bracket as they also went 4-0 for the weekend and took home their own Louisville Slugger commemorative bat signifying a tournament win. Wrapping up the Mitchell Ellington festivities was Johnny Mac s bunch, again called the Florida Fins, as they slipped past the Orlando Hawks to take home the shirts and bat as champions in bracket #3. Then we moved over to the Cocoa Beach complex, looking out over the Banana River and got to watch some very competitive brackets. Hank Schuhmann s Pinehurst Pub team was the class of the 4th bracket of our weekend as they are starting to look as though they have figured out how to win again. Here they were leading the way with a 4-0 record. Bracket #5 had Dale Huffman of the Solid Gold team, talking poor-mouth at dinner on Friday night about how they were missing a couple of players and trying to convince me that they were going to have a hard time, just made their way Page 22 Softball Magazine Issue

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5 through the weekend with just enough drama to keep us awake. Good weekend, very good defense, and timely hitting will usually pay off. Wrapping up the action at Cocoa Beach with Bracket #6, we had the Strike Force Commandos led by John Shinkle and Don Tordik taking their bracket by tie-breaker. Florida Dirt Source and Steve Levin Financial tied the Commandos with a 2-2 record for the weekend and Strike Force won based on their defense with the least runs allowed for the weekend. Moving over to Kiwanis Island, Bracket #7 was led to the finish by Bruce Walsh and his Silver Foxes, out of the Palm Beach area of the state, with a 3-1 record for the weekend. Bracket #8 had a hometown flavor to it as Mike Schnoke and the Businesses of Brevard team made their way through a 3 way 3-1 tie for the best record in the bracket to win their second title this year. Bud Hether s TPR Softball team led Bracket #9 with a 3-1 record to break through for their first title for the year. Then it was back to dependable Stradley Park where the Softball Central crew was bringing you the action live from field 3. Fortunately, none of the guys on the field seemed to have stage fright and there was some pretty good softball being played on all four diamonds at the Strad. If you want to see some of the action or order a video from the games that were covered at the tournament you can go to and go to Videos. Bracket #10 was led by the Jerry s Sportswear team out of Tampa as Jerry Hancock managed to slip past the Stingers and score a 4-0 record to take the prizes. In Bracket #11 that pesky bunch from Polk County called the Gessler Clinic/CrossCut team slipped past the Silverback Softball team as both finished with 3-1 records. Jim Phillips Gessler Clinic/Cross Cut team won on the head to head tiebreaker. Don Lesher s B & O Cleaners finally managed to break through and win a bracket for the first time this year with their 3-1 record in Bracket #12. Bracket #13 was won by the Brevard Athletics with a 4-0 record including three wins by run rule. In the key game on Sunday between the Athletics and Mind Legends the score was tight the entire game with the Athletics leading 9-8 going into the last inning. Back-to-back home runs by Jack Malone and Al Sarge were the difference as the Athletics won Bracket #14 was led by the Manasota Hardware team out of Manatee County with their 4-0 record. Finally, the Palm Beach Clippers team were saying farewell to the last billing in the notes as they won with a 4-0 record and made Stan Duncan and Tom Baird strut a little with their new shirts. But the question is... who gets to keep the bat? FHC Secretary Duane Jones said, It was a great weekend altogether and the Harbortown Canaveral team have set a standard that is going to be difficult to keep up with and it would appear that the bar has been set a little higher in the 50 s. Come on tournament hosts, let s step up and see what happens next. See you in Tampa and Clearwater. Page 24 Softball Magazine Issue