Weather Dominates Tournament

— After watching their fields get soaked and their plans washed away by heavy rain, several local high school baseball coaches made sure to take advantage of the weekend's clear skies.

With temperatures reaching in the upper 80s, players from Fayetteville, Springdale Har-Ber and Rogers Heritage took turns entering Bulldog Stadium -- which was under several inches of water not too long ago -- to play games Sunday.

At one time, the championship games of the Arkansas High School Varsity and Junior Varsity Summer Tournament were scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

But last week's rainfall changed those plans, and instead the three teams each played what amounted to a scrimmage against a team from another part of the state.

"It's been frustrating. You can't do anything about it," said Fayetteville coach Scott Gallagher, who played a large role in coordinating the four-day tournament. "Mother Nature just rained three inches the other day and just kind of hurt us."

The coaches had hoped that the tournament would give their young and inexperienced players a chance to deal with pressure while facing teams from around the state in the middle of summer.

However, the heavy rain on Thursday and Friday forced several out-of-town teams to wait in their hotel rooms after having their games postponed. Games were moved to Greenland after other fields got flooded, and the tournament's schedule was reshuffled on the fly.

The weather caused enough problems that Gallagher informed three out-of-town teams that they shouldn't even bother driving to Northwest Arkansas to take part in the tournament.

"Sure, you'd like to be able to play a full tournament in the summer and see where you've come and see if you've gotten any better," Heritage coach Chad Wolff said. "But I think at the same time, the rain is what it is and there's nothing you can do about it. That's how it ends up."

Still, several coaches said they learned more about their teams from watching them play in two games over four days. Fayetteville strung together its second seventh-inning rally in as many days to edge Little Rock Catholic 8-6 on Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, Preston Cash smacked a solo home run in the top of the sixth to tie the score before Physicians' Specialty Hospital -- a team made up of Har-Ber players -- lost 7-4 to Catholic.

"It's funny, we lost this game, but felt better about some things," said Randy Salsbury, who coaches the Physicians' Specialty Hospital team. "There are some things that we've been working on that you could see kind of taking fruit, so to speak."

Along with the full slate of games in Fayetteville, teams consisting of players from Bentonville and Rogers High were also scheduled to take the field Sunday in Bentonville.

Despite the problems caused by the rain, local coaches said they hope the Arkansas High School Varsity and Junior Varsity Summer Tournament evolves into a premiere offseason event.

In years past, coaches have held a similar tournament in Central Arkansas and perhaps one or two teams from Northwest Arkansas would compete in it. But the tournament was moved to other parts of the state to encourage more teams to participate in it.

"We think this state tournament in the future is really going to become a big event," Salsbury said "... Something that everybody is going to want to be a part of."

Gallagher said there has been talk amongst coaches around the state of expanding the tournament to have an 18-team varsity division and an 18-team junior varsity division.

A tournament of that size would provide young players with a level of competition that they don't typically see in the summer, the coaches said. It would also give coaches a chance to see how their players handle pressure situations.

"Especially if we had the whole state involved, I think it could turn out to be a pretty good thing for the kids to be going up against other people," Wolff said.

Of course, that's assuming the weather cooperates.

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