Whompers Close Out Year By Winning Festa Tournament

With the last tournament of the year, the winner would have bragging rights the entire off-season until stickball starts back up again in April 2008. The Little Italy Festa tournament is always the last tournament of the year and this year's tournament featured 5 teams in the one-day tournament. The teams participating in the tournament were the Youngstars, St. Sluggers, Stixx, Whompers, and the newly formed Scrubs. The Scrubs were created by San Diegan Willie Blas and they featured Stickball Hall Of Famer Albie Santiago, a stickball player who just moved to San Diego but has a lot of history playing stickball here. Albie has never lost a tournament in San Diego, winning 3 previous Labor Day tournaments with his Gold team from the Bronx.

Each team played 2 round robin games in the morning and all 5 teams made the single elimination playoffs. After the round robin was finished, the seeding was as follows (record in parenthesis):

1. Whompers (2-0)
2. Young Stars (1-1)
3. Scrubs (1-1)
4. St. Sluggers (1-1)
5. Stixx (0-2)

In the first round of the playoffs, the Stixx matched up against the St. Sluggers. These teams have recent history of matching up in the playoffs but this time the result was different. The Stixx trailed 4-1 in the top of the 7th inning but would answer with 4 runs. They would keep the St. Sluggers from scoring in the bottom of the 7th and go on to win and advance to the semifinals against the Whompers.

The YoungStars were matched up against the Scrubs in the semifinals and Willie Blas was looking to beat his former team. They came out on fire and beat the YoungStars by a score of 10-1 behind the hot hitting of Albie Santiago, who went 4-4. The Whompers would beat the Stixx in the other semifinal game by a score of 6-1 behind 2 solo HRs by Louis Centanni and Brian Matsumoto who had 2 RBI singles in the game.

In the championship game it was the Scrubs vs. Whompers. The Scrubs were looking to knock off the Whompers and have bragging rights as not only winning, but winning with 4 players who had never played the game before this tournament. It was a defensive battle for most of the game. The Scrubs got runners on 3rd base with no outs without scoring in two different innings. Finally, in the bottom of the 5th inning, the Whompers would get on the board on a 2-run double by Greg West and run scoring singles by Ed Marquis and Brian Matsumoto. The Scrubs came right back in the top of the 6th with a 3-run triple by Willie Blas and a sacrifice fly by Steve Mills to tie the game at 4. The game stayed tied until the bottom of the 7th inning when Greg West led off the inning with a double. Ed Marquis followed with a single to make it 1st and 3rd with nobody out. After a strikeout, Correy Cooper hit a walk off game-winning single to give the Whompers the championship by a score of 5-4.

Big shout out goes to the Scrubs for playing excellent stickball with 4 brand new players that had never played stickball. Thanks to all the teams that participated in stickball this season to make it the biggest stickball season ever. Enjoy the off-season and get ready for an even more competitive 2008 season. League play will run from April-July with playoffs in August, followed by the Labor Day tournament that will be bringing teams from Miami, Puerto Rico, and New York. See you all next season...