Busch Classic

A Seattle-area softball team came to Arkansas with players from coast to coast and had no problem with the Southern weather Sunday at the Busch Softball Classic.

A Seattle-area based softball team came to Arkansas with players from coast to coast and had no problem with the Southern weather Sunday at the Busch Softball Classic.

The Derby Girls, based in Kent, Wash., a suburb of Seattle, won the Women’s Major Division championship at the Sherwood Sports Complex. They defeated Team 24 from Lorton, Va., 14-3 in five innings.

The Busch Softball Classic celebrated its 40th anniversary this year. The tournament began in 1980 at the Junior Deputy Baseball Complex in Little Rock, then moved to Interstate Park in Little Rock. The Sherwood Sports Complex, Burns Park in North Little Rock and Dupree Park in Jacksonville are the current sites for the tournament.

In Sunday’s championship game, the Derby Girls scored five runs in the first inning and never looked back. They added six runs in the second inning and three in the fifth.

Megan Baltzell hit a threerun home run for the Derby Girls, who hit four home runs total. Tara Salcedo, Fiana Finau and Christian Dowling also homered.

In their six games in the tournament, the Derby Girls went 5-1 and outscored their opponents 86-33. They scored at least nine runs in each game.

Playing in the Busch Softball Classic is beneficial for the Derby Girls, Coach Don Cooper said, because of the weather and competition in the tournament.

“We use it as a prep for Worlds [the USSSA World Series],” Cooper said. “We wanted to come here and play in the heat and humidity.”

The Derby Girls team, which won the USSSA World Series Class AA title last season, features players from 11 states — Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington.

“It’s an orchestration to get everybody here,” Cooper said. “Now, it’s a profession. You’ve got big-time sponsors, between bat manufacturers and corporate sponsors.

“The last couple of years, the women have that. You get a lot of these girls that are straight out of Division I schools. It’s a really good program.”

The lone Arkansan on the team, Justine Rial of Bryant, told her teammates entering the Busch Softball Classic that they needed to hydrate.

“We have been playing a lot on the West Coast, where there’s no humidity and no heat,” Rial said. “We handled it [the weather] very well.

Rial was playing in her 12th Busch Softball Classic, but it was her first with the Derby Girls. It’s been an experience she’s enjoyed.

“It’s awesome,” Rial said. “It’s an honor.”

Cooper is no stranger to the Busch Softball Classic. He played in the tournament from 1992-2004, but this was his first return to Arkansas since he last played here.

“It’s a world-class tournament,” Cooper said. “Clint [Albright] and his wife Marla have run a great tournament, and the city has done such a great job. We go back to when we were playing at Interstate Park.

“Hopefully, we’ll come back next year.”

Resmondo from Florida won the Men’s Major Division championship with a 40-18 victory over Play the Game from Bryant.