The USSSA Open National Championship is a brand new class of tournament for USSSA. Their goals are high and are for the long term, not just for 2008. MCYSA (the local governing board for the CL USSSA tourney) The monies raised go to local baseball programs and scholarships for past local players. It is great baseball, great atmosphere, facilites all close together, great weather so far, and great fun to watch all these kids play. There was a great deal of behind the scenes fighting over which teams would go where right up until this week, and I will continue to take the high road and not smear any person or program. I'll only work hard to make it a memorable week for everyone in Crystal Lake.

Final results and scores for the USSSA National Championship are here.

http://www.usssa.com/sports/Tournament3.asp?TournamentID=436592

And work hard you did... An absolutely fantastic tournament! Great competition, great weather, well run tournament, great facilities, well-groomed fields. An absolute pleasure watching the kids play against talented teams like Top-Tier, Tao Baja (Puerto Rico) and Japan. The kids played great, coming from behind and scoring 3 in the bottom of the seventh to force extras in the championship game, but the team from Puerto Rico was strong and came right back to win it. A great way to finish the season. Well done USSSA, MCYSA and Upper Deck Cougars!

Agreed. This was the best tournament all year. The experience was unbeatable, having a team from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and most of all Japan.

Excellent tournament.

The team from Japan was fun to watch and very good. Lots of chatter on the field and bench, disciplined play in general with solid defense and an emphasis on methodical hitting. Not much power but they know where to go with the ball and execute the bunt very well. Watched them three times and they were rolling. The no hitters they threw were against teams that weren't near as good, anomolies in my opinion. Impressive to watch this guy K something like 19 batters though. This Japanese team has some kids who can throw some smoke and they all have excellent curve balls.

Puerto Rico was tough all around, LOUD supporting crowd, as expected, with a percussion section, whistle and car horn, and as usual a terrific shortstop and some good hitters complemented by a couple of good pitchers. They play an intense game and i believe the various teams from this outfit swept the USSSA tourney at all age levels. One of the best Puerto Rican teams I've seen over the years.

I do get tired of the noisemaking devices though...i much prefer a bunch of voices. This strictly a cultural thing though and there is something very colorful about it..if you've ever been to a game where there two latino teams playing at these levels, it's a lot of fun to watch, quite a spectacle. There was a team from the South Suburbs, Black Diamond Baseball, that beat Puerto rico in an excellent game during pool play. It think that was Puerto rico's only loss in pool play. This was an excellent game that went to the wire..Black Diamond won it showing a lot of heart and guts at the plate.

The Upper Deck Cougars had two teams there and they played well but couldn't pull it off. Puerto Rico was fresh and rested for the final. Upper Deck had a morning semifinal game against Top Tier and might have been tired...the sun got pretty hot in the aft.

Top tier was very tough down the stretch. winning something like 6 in a row in three days, but didn't have enough left. The day/night before the semifinals, they beat Japan 4-2 in a really great game. Best pure baseball game I saw at this tourney. Then TT beat Upper Deck (b?) team that night in another great game, extra innings that didn't end until 11:00 or so. Some terrific defensive play in that game. That advanced TT to the semifinal. TT has some very impressive hitters on this team.

TT played Upper Deck A the next morning at 9 am and got whipped 5-0. The Upper Deck pitcher in that game was showing some pretty good heat and was changing speeds very effectively, shut the Top Tier hitters down.

Upper Deck advanced to the finals where they couldn't quite do it. Great job by Uppper Deck, the finals could have gone either way.

As said it was a great tournament, very well organized with some great teams. Saw a number of excellent, tightly played ball games.

How does all this compare to the CABA tourney?

If you take East Cobb out of the CABA mix i think it shakes about exactly the same..East Cobb always brings it and they are always the team to beat these days when present. I watched them play twice in this CABA 15u and they are tough as hell. Schaumberg Seminoles have a lot of talent with good coaching and it was nice to see two Illinois represent the state in the finals at both of these tournaments. The Upper Deck v Puerto Rico final could have gone either way..

As far as East Cobb v Schaumburg Seminoles..very difficult to compete against East Cobb's organization. They are deep deep deep at every level and draw kids from a bigger, southern baseball region.

Nonetheless, These Illinois teams are all comprised of local talent and I think they show off the strength and talent of the various Illinois programs..something VERY impressive and very special about that, IMO. Especially being that we are in a Northern region.

This week showed how good Illinois Baseball is. In USSSA the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place teams all from IL (UDC, TT, UDC West). In CABA the 2nd place team from IL (Seminoles). Also, Downers Grove Longshots in USSSA and Illinois Sparks in CABA had impressive showings. 6 Excellent IL Teams. I saw games in both CABA and USSSA and have to say both levels of play were very high. I think Puerto Rico or Japan could've given East Cobb a run for the money. Japan was probably the best team in the USSSA but ran into the top pitcher on Puerto Rico and the Top Tier game as stated before was just amazing to watch. Great pitching on both sides but Top Tiers pitchers shut them down.

Hey Folks,

I am going to start a new thread entitled MCYSA wants your Input.

Thanks,
Jack

tisting..

maybe the teams from Illinois are good. But our teams are not the 2nd, 3rd and 4th best teams in the country and that they finished in those spots probably says more about the fact that these tournaments are not truly "National" tournaments but rather tournaments that have a few National teams but mostly Illinois Teams.

Sorry if I came across the wrong way but I did not mean to say that are teams are in the top 5 in the country, but we definitely have several teams in the top 25 teams. The best teams from Cali, Arizona, Texas, and Florida did not come, that is for sure. But East Cobb, Puerto Rico, Japan, Mac-N-Seitz, all the Washington, Indiana, and Ohio teams, South Oakland As, Massachusetts Scorpions, JPRD Louisiana, and South Carolina Diamond Devils were all very good. On any given day Upper Deck, Top Tier, and Schaumburg Seminoles can play with the best of them. That is what I meant.

That's for sure, no doubt. There are a slew of great squads all over the south (east to west) that don't even blink an eye at missing these events like CABA and USSSA. They find plenty of competition down there.

East Cobb...tournaments like Caba up their exposure, great p.r. and they understand that it brings them national prestige and exposure that can come back in dollars. Once an organization like that starts to win they not only can get the best talent, the best talent starts to come to them.

The reason why USSSA had Illinois teams finish in second, third, and fourth place is very simple to explain. There was only 9 or 10 out of state teams in the tournament. The only competition outside of Illinois came from the two International Teams. USSSA talked about all these out of state teams coming to the tournament and they ended up having over 66% of the teams from Illinois. Some of the teams were in house type teams. Evanston Orange, Northbrook Green, and four or five Crystal Lake teams. The only competition that Puerto Rico received was from the Upper Deck Cougars. Puerto Rico and Upper Deck should have participated in the Caba World Series where there was so much competition and representation from all across the country.

Puerto Rico did not only recieve competition from UDC. Black Diamond Baseball beat Puerto Rico 8 to 4. Top Tier lost to Puerto Rico 4 to 2. Japan lost to Puerto Rico 6 to 2.

"Puerto Rico and Upper Deck should have participated in the Caba World Series where there was so much competition and representation from all across the country."

Looking at Caba 20 of the 43 teams where from Illinois. There was "in house" teams and some teams of 14 yr olds. I think both tournaments had good teams and average teams in there. Its just too bad it wasnt just ONE big tournament............