North American Fastpitch Association national tournament coming to Eau Claire

Aug. 10—The North American Fastpitch Association is holding its national tournament in Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls starting Thursday afternoon.

Larry Duerkop, the secretary of the Wisconsin NAFA chapter, indicated the first games will be played at approximately 12 p.m. at Carson Park on Thursday. These will be the Class AA games, which are the ones he says are probably going to be the most competitive. AA and A-Major games will mostly be played at Carson Park. Games for the A-division teams and 23-and-under teams will be mostly played at Casper Park in Chippewa Falls. Duerkop estimated 58 teams from as far away as California, Oregon, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan will be present to play.

The North American Fastpitch Association was started in 1993, and has had some local players involved in the organization since that time.

"Eau Claire has always been kind of a heavy fastpitch area," Duerkop said. "We've held two world tournaments in Eau Claire in 2001 and 2005."

Duerkop indicated there will be one A-Major team from the Eau Claire area playing in the tournament. The Trendstone squad is one local men's Fastpitch team. There are four local men's league teams.

Duerkop said there will be 15 teams from the state of Wisconsin present at the tournament, one of whom is Kenosha's Optimum Crush, whom he said won the Wisconsin state tournament about three weeks ago. Another team would be the Bar Blues from Madison.

The Foster Fireside features players from Osseo, Whitehall and Eau Claire. The Fireside is the one 23-and-under team from the area featuring players just from the Chippewa Valley. Most games for the tournament will start in the early or mid-afternoon.

The NAFA has been working with Visit Eau Claire to ensure the 15 umpires coming to town for the tournament have everything they need in terms of food, transportation and lodging. Duerkop also said, "I have heard through the grapevine there will not be admission," but was not able to definitively say if there would be an admission fee for any of the games, or if they would be with free.

A few games are scheduled for the Lyman Hobbs field. Duerkop estimated some of the larger tournaments and world tournament have mostly been held in the Midwest for the past eight to 10 years, as it is a central location for many of the NAFA teams — even the Canadian ones.

The division championship games played Sunday afternoon will likely start at 1:45 or 2 p.m. The AA teams will only be playing Thursday and Friday since their world tournament begins in Moline, Ill., on Saturday afternoon.

Further information on game times and locations can be found at the Tourney Machine app.

Duerkop is optimistic current forecasts for pleasant weather for the entire tournament will bear out. The one city team playing in the A division is currently scheduled to play at noon at Casper Park on Thursday.