Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Top 10 Power Rankings

It comes down to which Ace takes down fellow Ace pitchers. Seeding will be extremely important as each team gains new pitchers and tournament experience.

OCW- They bring another hitter to their team that can help them. They also have two rubber armed Ace pitchers who don’t get hurt or feel pain. This team will take it in 2016

Hess- Showing Dominance in Regionals with some deep pitching and the ability to put the ball in play will take runners up.

WSEM – The champs will fall short this year. With new management and loss of Shore this team may will have a hard time coming together as a team to win it all. Deep pitching will keep them in the race.

HRL – With their experience and determination they will be up there for a top spot. They barely miss out each year and I think it will come together for them this year.

KWL – This team is better then what they showed last year. Extremely bad luck with scheduling caused them to get knocked out early. I see them competing this year.

TBW – With new players this team will have a good shot at placing in the top 8 this tournament but with a lot of uncertainties predicting a championship is impossible.

SWBL – This team is hard to predict. They have the best Offense against avg pitchers and the best defense of the whole tournament. If the stars align they finish high. If they get top 5 pitchers, then will place low.

GBL – This team is tough to predict. They will have their best squad of all time. They are a bunch of athletes but we’ve never seen them face good pitching and succeed. Plus, will they show up on time?

HVWBL – This team took down Tampa Last season so they won’t be looked at like they don’t belong on the field anymore. Teams will take them more seriously and it could affect their standings.

PWL – With an Ace like Jack Shannon they will for sure get a win or two against just about any team they please. They need another pitcher to step up and some plate discipline to make it further.

The remaining teams need to make a name for themselves this year. Take down a top 10 team and show the Wiffleball Nation you are ready to compete.

Good luck to each team. See you in Ohio.
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TBW Decline in 2015

Tampa came to the 2015 tournament with high hopes of getting another championship under their belts. The team that won in 2013 was the same team that came to Ohio in 2015 with a few additions. At the 2015 Regionals in Minnesota we wanted to win out and put up runs. With the new time restraints, we decided to reduce our walks as much as possible and Green light each pitch that was close. Getting as much work in as possible for the 4 innings we got per game. We did well finishing undefeated and grabbing the top seeding spot for Round Robin. The Road to Ohio starts and we are in top shape to compete. As we draw PWL, GBL, and SRL in round robin we were excited cause there was a good shot we could get a top seed in the bracket and Face an easier team to throw our #3 pitcher S. Effertz and
cruise on saving our #1 & #2 pitchers. 

 As Round Robin began we took down the first 2 teams PWL & GBL but not by much. Our runs scored was very low for round robin games and that was going to affect our seeding even being Undefeated. So it came time to play SRL and we looked up at the bracket to start predicting who we would Face. As it played out it looked like we were going to get a dominate Ace to start off our first game and we didn’t want to have a 12 inning shoot out game 1 of the tournament so we didn’t take the SRL game serious, Let’s start off by saying it didn’t work. We faced a better team than we would have gotten if we played to win. 

 Still we got to play HVWB who still was a good team but didn’t have a dominate Ace we’ve faced before so we were confident enough to through our #3 pitcher. Shane jumped onto the mound and just couldn’t find the zone. We had 1 out, based loaded, with 1 run already walked in. Mike Harley had to come in to save the situation we were in. The very first pitch went over the fence and immediately we were down 5-0. Everyone knows when facing a good pitcher 5 runs isn’t easy to come back from and Tozzi was throwing well, so our spirits were down and we couldn’t come back to get the win. Why did we even chance throwing out #3? It was due to the rule that once a pitcher throws 2+ innings he has to sit out 1 game. If a pitcher throws over 8 innings he must sit out 2 games. We didn’t want to run into that issue heading into the tougher teams. It back fired. 

 The next game was against a healthy KWL that went 9 innings taking Chris Harley out for the next 2 games. 

 The following games was against PWL and Mike Harley threw over 2 innings to secure a win. Taking him out for the next game. 

 Our 4th tournament game was against SWBL who are arguably the best Offense/Fielding team in tournament. We had neither Harley available and to make matters worse the wind was blowing in and Hitting a Hr was near impossible as both teams were floating in pitches. Small ball against SWBL wasn’t an option with the defense they have. So we lost our second game of the tournament. 

 Overall Last year there were a lot of bad choices and missed opportunities. Was TBW that bad last year? No. If we made better decisions, we would have made at least top 3 last year. 2016 is a new year with new players. The difference for us is the experience other players have over our new guys. Should be an interesting tournament. We are not just overlooking 2016 and gearing up for a run in 2017 with a loaded team, we are coming to win in 2016, rebuilding in NWLA isn’t like being the Atlanta Braves.
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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Managing the 1st NWLA Tournament All Star Game

                          

                
 
               What an honor it was to manage the 1st all star game, but picking 2nd and being the visiting team meant we didn’t achieve our goal the prior tournament. Winning the year before give you home team and 1st pick  advantage.With the rules set, I knew I wanted to draft a big hitting team, but also enough arms to get through the game. We were given a player from each league to draft, not knowing much about some of the leagues representatives made it tough to know what we had. Picking 2nd I grabbed my own ace Chris Harley and followed that up with Michigan’s big ace Austin Bischoff. I thought I had my next ace in Regis Pollard, a guy that I looked forward to playing with. Due to a tragedy back home, I had to replace him with my teammate Shane Effertz, rounding out my team were Dan Recchio from Minnesota, Josh Rhoten from Kalamazoo, Kevin Haynes from Cincinnati, and Jay Moore from Mississippi.
 
 The game started off with us getting owned by Skibbee’s Brett Spencer, I have to admit that the crowd noise his teammates provided as he struck out the side was one of the best moments of the tournament, with every swing and miss, they got louder and loader. Our Starter Bishoff started off the game great and kept it scoreless, we added a run in 2nd. Strong pitching by Josh Rhoten took us to the 3rd, I knew I had 5 guys capable of the getting through an inning each, but wasn’t sure about the 6th inning, I figured lets get it out of the way in the 3rd inning,  Jay Moore started the inning and walked all 3 batters he faced, he wanted out of the game, however he did figure out how to pitch over the weekend and did quite well, we brought in Haynes who wasn’t that excited about the move, while he did give up some runs and a few homers, he threw strikes and eventually got us out of the inning with a chance to win, that is all I asked of him and he came through.
 
Effertz would throw a scoreless 4th and our bats came alive in the top of the 5th, led by Moore’s 2nd homerun a grand slam. Recchio did his job as the set up guy just like I had hoped and got us to our closer Harley who sealed the win for us, while Jay Moore would be the MVP of the game, it was a fun experience and set the tone for a great weekend. Hanging out with this group of guys and their teams was a fun time, winning the game made it even better, and winning the tournament topped that.
 
Now with the 1st pick in the 2014 NWLA Tournament All Star Game I choose…. 
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TBW Travels to Columbus

   

   
                                                     


       Traveling from Tampa, FL to Columbus can be tough at times. The team flies on stand-by using buddy passes that can cause serious uncertainties. Between the heavy flying during the summer and Michael Harley flying out of another city, the stress levels are at an all-time high trying to make the NWLA dinner on Friday. Fortunately we all landed at the same time without any trouble and off to the Motel 6 we go.

Now throughout the week we have been seeing tweets and comments on Facebook regarding this Motel 6. With not one positive remark, we took a gamble and proceeded on to the motel. Shortly after arriving we immediately decided to look elsewhere. The Motel 6 desk attendant could tell we were looking for an excuse to relocate and was he kind enough to point out the better hotels around the tournament grounds. Derek Linderman (Captain) decided to take the matters into his own hands and used priceline.com to grab a hotel for the TBW. Priceline offers great deals including Internet and complimentary breakfast. The catch with Priceline is that the property could be within a 20 mile radius of the location you enter. Before we knew it the hotel was booked and yes we were 20 minutes from the field with no Internet or breakfast. Great start to the weekend.

After the Friday night games we arrived back to the fields dealing with the rain and wind that seemed all too familiar, the TBW was practicing in those conditions for 5 weeks. The confidence of the TBW increased as the weather conditions declined. We started getting loose and throwing wiffleballs in the bullpen and for some reason the balls were going in the opposite direction from what we were use to, our confidence level was back down. TBW started to talk strategy and play a little wiffle small ball and things started to get back on track. Although the guys we competed against were great guys, we didn’t fly up to Columbus mid-summer to play Mario Kart in a motel 6. It was a great turnout and an even better finish for the TBW. We can’t wait to come back to play next year and defend the title. See everyone next year.
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Tuesday, July 23, 2013

NWLA Tournament Stats

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