Rockford, IL-   The American Fastpitch Association (AFA) cordially invited an impressive seven Oklahoma 16 and Under, Class A Fastpitch Softball teams to participate in this years AFA 16U Class A National Tournament, which was held this past weekend at Sportscore One in beautiful Rockford, IL.  The Teams representing Oklahoma included the Tulsa Lightning, the Tulsa Tuff Stuff, the Oklahoma Classics of Tulsa/Broken Arrow, the Oklahoma Dynamite Badside of Edmond, the Oklahoma Select of Oklahoma City, the Oklahoma Sensations of Choctaw and the Oklahoma Titans of Tulsa led by Cleveland’s own Brooke Lewis.  All of these teams qualified by their performance in AFA Qualifier tournaments held throughout the season throughout the Country and they all came prepared to play on a National level as it showed with several overall impressive finishes including the Badside’s 5^th Place, Sensations 9^th Place, Tuff Stuff’s 9^th Place and Titans 13^th Place finishes overall out of 48 of the Nations Top 16 and Under teams.

 

Rockford is located along the beautiful Rock River in northern Illinois. An All-American City and an Illinois Arts Friendly Community, Rockford is home to more than 150,000 people, making it the third largest city in Illinois.  Rockford’s fascination with sports, and particularly baseball began shortly after the Civil War, with the success of the Forest City Baseball Club. Some of baseball’s earliest icons began their careers in the Forest City, including Albert Spaulding, Ross Barnes and Adrian Anson. Then from 1945 to 1954, Rockford again gained national recognition with the All American Girls Professional Baseball League team, the Rockford Peaches as many of you may remember from the movie “A League of Their Own”, which is incidentally many of the young ladies, participating in fastpitch softball’s, all-time favorite movie and a motivating factor in their pursue of the dream of one day playing professional sports.

 

Sportscore One, built in 1983 on 105 acres adjacent to the Rock River in northwest Rockford, this is the original Sportscore complex.  Sportscore One has 8 lighted softball diamonds local play plus regional and national tournaments attract over a million visitors to this location a year, and it’s consistently rated as the area’s top tourist destination.   This has been the site of four previous AFA National Championships.  The park was beautiful and I don’t believe that I have ever seen the grass in better condition then it was here.  The only real downside was that the infields were pretty rough containing tiny gritty sand similar to kitten litter and was a dangerous place for the ultra competitive player, who lays out, dives and slides a lot.

 

The Oklahoma Titans of Tulsa, OK are a tuff uprising group of Athletes.  The Titans are led by the All-Star coaching duo of Angela Foster along side April Humphreys.  Angela pitched and played 1^st base and outfield at the University of Tulsa for two seasons and then transferred to the University of Oklahoma for her final two seasons.  Angela is beginning her 3rd season as the pitching coach at her alma mater, Owasso High School.  April Humphreys started her college career at Oklahoma State University as a utility player and then transferred to Northeastern State University where she finished a successful career.  April has recently graduated from the TU College of Law and is now preparing to pass her Bar Exam the week of Nationals.   The Titans have an All-Star group of Amateur Athletes from throughout Northeastern Oklahoma including #2 Brooke Lewis SS/2^nd of Cleveland, #3 Chelsea Kennedy 2nd/3rd of Owasso, #6 Kacie Ryal  2nd/Utility of Henryetta, #7 Casey Moyer OF/3rd of Broken Arrow, #8 Katrina Loy  OF  of Sequoyah (Clrmre),  #10 Jocey Leedom  P/1B of Red Oak, #11 Brittany Powers P/OF of Catoosa, #12 Sara Wilkerson 1B/OF of  Broken Arrow, #13  Shana Westover C/3rd  of Skiatook, #15 Carly Westover  3rd/U  of Skiatook,  #16 Tiffany Treat SS/Utility of Beggs and #20 Casey Elliott P/Utility of Skiatook.  The Team finished the tournament with a 2-and-1Record, for a second place Pool seeding and a 3-and-2 Bracket Record finishing strong for the week in a tie for an impressive 13^th place overall.

 

Brooke will be a senior this year at Cleveland High School and is the Daughter of Tonya and Allen Hall of Cleveland.  Brooke looks forward to the upcoming Tiger Softball season and will be featured in the Oklahoma Sports Magazine later this month for achieving player of the month.

 

Congratulations to Brooke and the entire Oklahoma Titans organization for your hard work and dedication.  Please, everyone congratulate these young Ladies when you see them and let them know how proud we are of their hard work and dedication on and off the field.  Also, feel free to leave them a Message in their Guest Book on their Web-Site at http://www.eteamz.com/titansOK

 

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