Ashland, OH - Top men's softball teams will play at Ashland's Brookside Park
The Brookside Park Main Diamond will come alive with some of the best fastpitch teams in the country this weekend as the third annual Ashland A's Invitational takes place.
Six top-notch teams are competing in the event with Friday's first two games pitting the AWP Lumberjacks of Illinois against the Ohio Bombers at 7 p.m. followed by the New York Gremlins against the Ashland A's at 9 p.m.
Ashland A's player-manager Craig Scott says everything is falling into place for a fun weekend.
"We have six strong teams and the weather is looking good, too," Scott said. "The past two years of having this tournament, the rains kind of affected a lot of the games but this year everything's going to be good with the weather, fingers crossed."
Games on Saturday begin at 9 a.m. with the Bear Creek Express out of Ontario, Canada, against Fisher's Fast Pitch out of Pennsylvania.
Six more games will be held Saturday with Sunday's lineup seeing No. 2 against No. 3 at 9 a.m., and No. 1 against No. 4 at 11 a.m. The championship game will be held at 1 p.m
"It's going to help out a ton having everything held at Brookside Main," Scott said. "And the Ashland City Parks Department has done a tremendous job. It's really nice down there now. I stopped down just to look at some stuff for the way the broadcasts are going to have to be done, and they were cleaning up, painting everything, so it's on tap to be a pretty good weekend, pretty exciting."
The top team in the field is the New York Gremlins, who are not scheduled to play Bear Creek, although it's likely the two teams could meet leading into the championship field on Sunday.
"In my eyes, the Gremlins are the favorite for everything, they've lost one game this year," Scott noted. "The first game of the year, they lost by 2-1 or 3-2 to Bear Creek, and they haven't lost a game since.
"I think they have the No. 1 pitcher in the world right now in Jack Besgrove, a young Australian kid, maybe 18 or 19 years old," Scott added. "And he has single-handily won the 23 and under World Tournament and the ISF, which is kind of like the Olympics for men's softball."
Other pitchers for the Gremlins include Andrew Kirkpatrick, Sammy Villalvazo, and Pablo Migliavacca. Slugging outfielders Mathieu Roy and Ben Enoka also return, along with General Manager Greg Leather and several coaches, including Nick McCurry of Ashland.
Scott played for the Midland, Michigan Explorers this summer and part of that team will be with the Ashland A's, along with Zach Nussbaum of Dalton and players from Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York.
"We should have a competitive team on the field this year," Scott said. The Ohio Bombers are a bunch of young kids who use to play for me, and they've got some Argentinians. They have a pretty good pitcher, Tyson Duncan from Australia, a big string kid who throws a hard drop ball.."
New this year, according to Scott, is all games will be broadcast live.
"It's on Softball Premier TV on YouTube, the guy comes in from Panama," Scott noted. "He's doing all of the broadcasts, and he's got a couple of local guys who will do some games also, to kind of fill in."
Sponsors for this weekend's tournament are the South Street Grill, Ohio Fire Pizza, and Wagon Wheel Tavern.
"We've gotten big help from Scott Stoner who's always willing to lend a helping hand," Scott said. "My mom, Dana Scott, Kohler Scott, my nephew, has helped out a ton, and Mike Van Dine Jr."
