Sydney Mercer Archives - Page 2 of 2

One weekend ago at the perfect storm tournament held by Thunder Elite, it was clear that a lot of teams had rust to shake off after going so long without softball. It led to a lot of lopsided final scores over the weekend. A week later it is safe to say all the rust is off. Man what a competitive weekend at the D1 Fastpitch Summer Showcase helps at McCune Park in Canfield, and Field of Dreams in Boardman. The weather was great, and I watched a lot of softballs this weekend, which put me in my happy place.

There were a couple of teams I followed this weekend. Let’s talk about the USSSA Pride Scarlet team containing a ton of local talent. Last weekend their offense was incredible, and they looked just as good this weekend. Maris Barbato leads off for the Pride, and talk about a starting off a lineup with a bang. Barbato hit 4 home runs over the weekend. 3 in three consecutive games. That wasn’t the end of the Pride’s power though, as Sydney Mercer and Sommer Bourne also left the yard. When you combine their poet on offense to really solid arms in the circle, the Pride become an extremely dangerous opponent. Highlights of their Saturday games can be found at the bottom of the page.

The best pitching performance I saw all weekend was without a doubt Maci Boggess for the Ohio Lasers-Yellow. I watched her shut out a really good Wolfpack team to close out the Laser’s Saturday. Then on Bracket Play Sunday she shut out the Outlaws-Harbold. A couple of hours later in the Laser’s next Bracket game against an older more experienced Firecrackers PA-Griffin team, she only surrendered 1 ER on 2 hits. She gave up a leadoff triple that a RBI groundout would eventually score. Unfortunately, the Lasers offense couldn’t find a rhythm and the Lasers dropped the game 1-0. Maci does a fantastic job using both sides of the plate. She also can mix speeds pretty well. She has a great spin on her pitches and when she’s on, she’s super hard to hit. She was the Lasers workhorse over the weekend, and never showed signs of fatigue. Maci is an uncommitted class of 2023 out of Winfield West Virginia. Keep an eye on her as the years go by.

(Photo Credit: Tammy Justice)

On Sunday I took a trip to the Field of Dreams to see the Outlaws Demarini-White team. South Range’s Bree Kohler had a productive first weekend of travel ball in the circle and at the plate. On Saturday she pitched against Ohio Lasers Blue which is widely considered to be not just a top team in the state, but the country. Bree finished with 7 K’s and surrendered just 3 hits. The Outlaws won the game 5-3. The Outlaws also feature PGF All-American, and future Missouri Tiger Riley Frizell. Being someone who has a lot of connections and family in Kansas City who are big Missouri fans themselves, I was very excited to get to see Riley in action. She’s going to do big things in Columbia.

That’ll do it for the recap of the D1 Fastpitch Summer Showcase. My biggest takeaway, especially with the handful of teams that also played in last weekend’s action is how much smoother the players looked after just a week of getting back on the field. I saw a lot fewer errors in the field, pitchers hitting a lot more of their spots, and hitters making quick adjustments to pitchers.

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Softball made its return to the area this past weekend, and it busted the doors wide open. Thunder Elite hosted a 92 team tournament spanning from 10U to 18U. Teams from all over Ohio, and some from Pennsylvania we’re competing at four different venues throughout the area.

I have a few takeaways from not only the games I watched, but also the updates I saw from a lot of these team’s wonderfully run social media pages. The first takeaway looking at the scores of the games this weekend it was clear offense was not a problem. On bracket play Sunday alone there were 24 games that had at least one team in double digit runs. I was expecting pitchers to have an advantage in the first weekend back. It doesn’t look like that was always the case.

The most competitive and thrilling game of bracket play Sunday came in 10u where the championship game between Thunder Elite 09 and Ohio ICE purple. Thunder Elite took a 5-4 lead in to the bottom of the 7th, only to see ICE tie things up. Then ICE walked it off for a 6-5 win.

Ohio USSSA Pride Scarlet showed how potent it’s lineup is over the weekend as they hit 6 HR’s as a team on Saturday. 3 of them by Josie Spano. Tori Long and Sydney Mercer also went yard. Mercer added another home run on Sunday. The Prides lineup is powerful.

(Courtesy Ohio USSSA Pride- Scarlet)

Maddy Taylor From Austintown Fitch got her first home run of the summer over the weekend for the Lasers. She’ll be someone to watch as the summer goes on. An absolute division 1 type talent.

(Courtesy Britton Taylor)

Other Championship scores: in the 12u division Silver Creek Prospects beat RC Venom 13-7. In the 14u Lake Erie Warhawks beat Wolfpack 06 10-0. 16u saw the Garroway Outlaws beat USSSA Pride Scarlet 8-3.

I personally was watching the 18u part of this tournament. It was full of high school seniors that may have been the last chance to see play in the area. The Ohio Warriors were the local team in the bracket. Mostly made up of either seniors or juniors, their lineup is loaded with local talent. I was impressed with Bri Callow out of McDonald who took most of the pitching duties over the weekend. Kaili Gross is also a pitcher on their roster, but wasn’t quite warmed up to pitch this weekend. Bri also showed great strength at the plate. Some other prominent names on the Warriors roster are Ally Nitolli, Cam Latanzio, Brooke Bobbey, and Abby Farber all out of Poland. Lexi Diaz our of Mooney gives them tremendous speed. Delaney Early out of East Palestine is a high quality slapper in the lineup. They have a cannon behind the plate in Lauren Maughan out of Boardman. The Warriors went 3-0 in pool play on Saturday. They earned the two seed in bracket Sunday. With a bye, the win their first game on Sunday against the Pittsburgh Predators. The Warriors were up 4-1 for most of the game, but had to hold off a rally in the final inning to win 4-3. In the 18u championship they played the Pittsburgh Passion who upset Parma in the semis 10-8. The Warriors fell behind early but kept clawing back. Trailing 11-4 in their final at bats the Warriors scored 5 runs and had the tying runs on base before falling 11-9.

It was a great weekend of softball. The guidelines set down by the Ohio Heath Department were followed at the games I attended. It was a refreshing sense of normalcy.

This weekend there are tournaments at Boardman’s Field of Dreams, and McClure Park In Canfield. I will try to hit them both weather pending and have another travel ball recap next week.

Below are highlights of the Ohio Warriors Bracket Sunday games.

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