[NATIONAL] 2021 Southeast Wiffle® Open Tournament Preview

The road to the 2021 United Wiffle®Ball national championship begins Saturday in Kingston, Tennessee with the 2021 Southeast Wiffle® Open. The champion of that event will become the first 2021 tournament winner to punch their ticket to the second stage of the United Wiffle®Ball national championship tournament.

EVENT HISTORY

The 2021 Southeast Wiffle® Open is ostensibly the second iteration of the tournament, but the event can trace its roots to the 2017 National Wiffle® tournament in Roane County, Tennessee. The National Wiffle® tournament returned to Tennessee in 2018, had a layover in Atlanta in 2019, and then gave rise to Southeast Wiffle® (“SEW”) in 2020. Last year, SEW held a pair of fast pitch tournaments prior to their August open entry championship event in Kingston. This year, the Open is currently the lone fast pitch tournament on the 2021 SEW calendar.

EVENT FORMAT

The 2021 Southeast Wiffle® Open begins with a two-game pool play round which will be used to seed the 10 teams for the elimination round. The bottom four teams (seeds 7 through 10) will compete in a play-game with the winning teams continuing and the losing teams heading home. For bracket play, the remaining eight teams compete in two separate 4-team double elimination brackets. The winners of each bracket will then square off in a winner-takes-all championship game to crown the 2021 Southeast Wiffle® Open champion.

Due to the play-in game and the double elimination format for bracket play, the tournament can be won in as few as six games or in as many as nine games.

THE FIELD

Teams: 29ers (GA), Bench Warmers (TN), Busch Lights (TN), Chattanooga Lookouts (TN), ETW (TN), Savvy (GA), Sluggers (TN), Stars (TN), Whiskey Ducks (TX), Williams Construction (TN).

With the 2020 tournament champions – the Music City Wifflers, led by teenage fireballer Willie Walton ­– not defending their title, the 2021 Southeast crown is essentially up for grabs. The 10-team field is an intriguing combination of Southeast Wiffle® regulars, veteran teams with diverse experience, and several Tennessee-based teams making their SEW tournament debuts.

Among the group of returning teams – ETW, 29ers, Busch Lights, and Bench Warmers – the 29ers are the best bet to make a deep run.

The young team from northern Georgia reached the championship game at all three 2020 SEW tournaments, winning the middle one. The second runner up finish for the 29ers (Douglas, Reynolds, Tate, and Brock) came at the Open championship after a pool play round that left them fighting for their tournament lives. The 29ers defeated the Bench Warmers in the tournament’s lone play-in game before going on a run. After staying alive with the play-in win, the 29ers won their next three games to reach the finals as the winner’s bracket champion. Although Music City ended up winning two-straight to capture the title, it capped an impressive rookie season for the Dahlonega squad.

No single facet of the 29ers’ game jumps out at you, but they succeeded in 2020 with a competent and balanced attack. Last year at the Open, the team’s pitchers generally threw strikes and forced the opposition to beat them. The foursome gave most of their innings to Douglas, who – except for a bout of wildness against Louisiana’s Anarchy – went right at hitters all tournament long and got good results, despite medium-ish velocity on his slider. All four players look comfortable at the plate, take their walks when given, and last year were able to make solid, hard contact against some high velocity pitchers (Walton, Ryker Holloway) while swinging only yellow bats. They are also an athletic bunch with obvious baseball experience, which they parlayed into a quality defensive tournament.

A semi-recent comparison to the 2020 29ers is the 2017/2018 versions of the WILL Waves in terms of young, athletic squads who do not give up free passes, have good at bats, and play difference-making defense. The Waves rode that formula to an NWLA Tournament championship in 2018. The 29ers have already shown that same recipe can work for them in SEW. With a year of experience under their belt and an offseason of practice behind them, the 29ers might be ready to take the next step in their development.

Included among the subset of Tennessee-based teams making their SEW and major tournament debuts – MTWL Stars, MTWL Sluggers, Williams Construction, and Chattanooga Lookouts – are a pair of teams with some known, recent experience and a couple of teams that are more of a mystery.

The Middle Tennessee Wiffle®Ball League (“MTWL”) is sending a pair of teams to Kingston in the Stars and Sluggers. Currently in its sophomore season, the MTWL is a four-team league that boasts a quality collection of players. The league utilizes MLW-style rules – yellow bats, base running, and a relatively short pitching distance. Naturally, the pitching distance could prove to be biggest challenge for the MTWL clubs as they compete in a SEW tournament for the first time. Based off video, it seems the league has at least several players with the potential to throw well from the 45-foot pitching distance. It is also evident that the league has several players who can swing the bat and help keep their teams in games in the event the pitching is a little shaky.

Rounding out the field are a pair of teams with a broader breadth of experience than the rest of the field.

The Whiskey Ducks have been busy this past year, traveling for league and tournament play both inside the Lone Star State and beyond its borders. One year ago, the Corpus Christi squad had almost zero competitive Wiffle® experience but nonetheless threw their hat in the United Wiffle® ring. By that time that event came around, the Ducks had gained additional experience – including winning one league title and taking second-place at the September Cedar Park medium pitch event – but still went winless at PeoplesBank Park. Joseph Vasquez handled himself well on the carpet at the 2020 United Wiffle® tournament and showed off his pop by finishing 4th in the UW home run derby. If Vasquez is with the Ducks in Tennessee, he could prove a difference maker. This is a hungry group and they have demonstrated that that they will not be intimidated no matter the circumstances. That attribute alone makes them one of the top contenders in Kingston.

The most experienced squad at the Southeast Wiffle® Open — by a wide margin — and perhaps the on-paper favorites, is Savvy.

This Georgia club has competed under the Savvy moniker for more than a decade and the team’s individual Wiffle® roots extend back nearly twenty years. The heart of Savvy is the duo of Troup Brinson and Chris “Smooch” Moncrief. The gregarious Troup and Smooch are not only true ambassadors of the sport but are also battle tested players with experience that extends across multiple eras of fast pitch wiffs. Once one of the southeast’s top pitchers, the years have taken a toll on Troup’s arm but there are no other players on any other team in the tournament that can match him for experience.

Savvy finished in the top 30 at last year’s United Wiffle® national championship and came within one game – perhaps even one play – of an even better result. The team they will bring to Tennessee is a bit different than their 2020 national team. Troup, Smooch, and Robbie O’Quinn remain from that roster and are joined by Scott Bragg and Tyler Brinson. Bragg had a lengthy run as one of the top players in both the northeast and southeast in the latter part of the 2000’s and early part of the 2010’s. Bragg was also a member of the winning teams at the 2018 and 2019 National Wiffle® tournaments and part of the Giants squad that finished in the top four at the 2018 Fast Plastic national championship. The wild card for Savvy in Tennessee might be Troup’s son, Tyler, who will inject some youth into an otherwise veteran lineup. The exact role he will play is unknown, but if Savvy can get some innings out of Tyler – even if in pool play – and utilize their veteran players more strategically, that could be a potential difference-maker. The key for Savvy involves taking the least circuitous path possible through the tournament and keeping their games played to a minimum. If they reach the championship game having played only the minimum five games to that point, that should bode well for their chances.

UP NEXT

Whoever takes home the United Wiffle® NCT bid at the Southeast Wiffle® Open will have to wait a little while before getting some company. The 2021 Texas State fast pitch championship in Cedar Park is currently next on the agenda and that tournament does not take place until the final day of July. Although it is still early, the Texas State Championship is shaping up to be a very competitive event with 2020 Texas fast pitch champions TC35, 2020 Texas State Champions (medium pitch) the Wise Guys, Louisiana’s Anarchy, Whiskey Ducks, and other notable teams expected to compete.

From there, the pace will pick up as more than half of the 2021 bids will be decided in August with the end of the MAW regular tournament season in early August and the MLW Wiffle in the Mitten tournament at the end of that month. Stay tuned to The Drop for coverage of all the United Wiffle®Ball linked tournaments.