2022 “Battle of Bull Run” Virginia Major tournament report!

2022 “Battle of Bull Run” Major

Nokesville, Virginia

May 21-22

Smash Its Andrew Collins hits against Anarchy in the winner’s final Saturday evening.

Hot Links (More Videos to come)

Virginia Bracket and Results link

Virginia Picture Album link

Virginia Video Clips link

Virginia Winner’s Final Condensed Game link

Virginia Championship Condensed Game link (When Ready)

Virginia Archived Games link

Virginia Stats link (When Ready)

Virginia Team List

Saturday Recap

Franchise/CLA/BAF takes down the Nitro Circus ‘B’ team in the 1st round.

The Conference USSSA returned to Nokesville, Virginia’s Valley View Park for the first time since the 2020 Dual was held their due to Covid-19. The tournament began on Saturday morning with 16 teams half of whom were Conference teams. The weather was warm and humid but the Dudley Pro-M balls still flew pretty well on the main field #1 where the wind was blowing out all tournament long. On the other side of the park the wind blew in on field #3 and the scores reflected that. At 8 AM Fish Head/FHC/Corner House (MD-B) a non-Conference team jumped out to an 18-0 lead on Tru/StubTerminal/Timeless/LA/ES (NC-B) and although Tru held Fish Head scoreless in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th innings they were unable to complete the comeback and Fish Head won 27-26. Big Corbin Hunt hit 4 home runs in the loss for Tru. Another big 1st round win was Franchise/CLA/BAF (VA-B) who knocked Nitro Circus/Team199/SI (MD/B) 26-22 with consistent line to line hitting. The other 6 – 1st round games were won as expected by the Conference teams. Anarchy/Smash It Sports/Beloli/OA (NY-A) run ruled Nitro Circus/Wilsons/Spirits West (MD-C) 21-1. S&E/Dan Smith beat Alpha (MD-C) 26-11 as Tyler Wiles went 5-5 and Joey Kampfer 4-4 in a 7 inning game. West Point Softball (IN-A) run ruled Anchor Lawn Care/Winter Plumbing (VA-C) 27-6. Tournament sponsor Chick-fil-a/Slugger/BAF/LBT (VA-AA) playing their own ‘C’ team CFA/HDI/BAF run ruled them 28-5 in 4 innings. Trey Porter and Jacob Clifton were 4-4 at the top of the lineup. Nitro Circus/Klutch/Team 199/BRC (MD-TBD) run ruled AMI/Fathom/JimmysFamousSeafood (MD-C) 33-11. And Smash It/Thunder/Chosen/Pure/RF/BD/TDB (NY-Major) the only Major team in the tournament after Monsta and MPT dropped out, beat Chick-Fil-a/BAF/TLI (VA-D) 42-3. Josh Riley, Andrew Collins, Everett Williams, Buddy Wolf, Jason Martel, and Justin Gregory were all 4-4 in the game as Josh Riley, Andrew Collins, Dale Brungardt, Buddy Wolf, Jason Martel, Kyle Fisher, and Justin Gregory all were perfect hitting either 5-5 or 4-4.

S&E’s Emilson Marquez one of the leagues leading hitters helps them beat Alpha in the 1st round.

Chick-fil-a’s Ricky Moyers slaps a single against their ‘C’ team in the 1st round.

In the “Round of 8” which was played on all 4 fields at 11:30 AM Anarchy pictured above upset home town favorite Chick-fil-a 30-22. In the game there was an odd time out call as the pitch was coming in where the Anarchy batter made the 3rd out late in the game. The time out was called by the field umpire and was for a 3rd base coach that was out of uniform. The time out stood and the batter got another pitch and Anarchy increased their lead with a couple of two out hits.

In other “Round of 8” action Fish Head upset S&E/Dan Smith 12-9 jumping out to a 10-6 lead with the wind blowing in. S&E out homered Fish Head 4-3 and Fish Heads Drew Counselman went 3-4 with a homer and 4 RBI. The Smash It Sports Major team beat Franchise 19-1 as Josh Riley, Andrew Collins, Everett Williams, Buddy Wolf, Jason Martel, and Justin Gregory were all 4-4 in the game. And in the best game of the 2nd round West Point battled Nitro Circus getting two diving stops by 3rd baseman Justin Smith to end two different innings. But the Nitro Circus offense was too much and they had a 10 run lead going into the bottom of the 7th and Nitro won by 8 runs 30-22.

West Point had the offense going early against Nitro Circus with a Canaan Baum homer.

Final 4 Recap

Rob “Speedy” Banks adds to Fish Heads early lead over Anarchy in the “Final 4”

In the semifinals Saturday evening Fish Head jumped out to an 11 run lead against Anarchy before Anarchy mounted a double digit comeback inning and won 28-20. And Smash It Sports let Nitro Circus hang around but finally finished them off 40-22 scoring 17 in the 3rd and 12 in the 5th. Andrew Collins was 6-6 and Buddy Wolf 5-5 as pretty much the entire team had at least 4 hits in the game.

Winner’s Final Recap

Smash It Sports gets ready for the winner’s bracket finals vs Anarchy.

In the winner’s bracket finals on Saturday night Smash It Sports with Andy Purcell pitching for the 1st time in the tournament jumped out to a 10-3 lead and cruised fairly easily to a 29-11 victory in 6 innings as Ben Dunn hit 3 key home runs and lead off hitter Josh Riley went 5-5.

Ben Dunn hits another key homer in the SIS victory.

Loser’s Bracket Recap

‘AA’ powers S&E and Chick-fil-a meet unexpectedly in the loser’s bracket.

Fish Heads Adam Draper hits a walk off homer to beat West Point.

Fish Head hits against Nitro Circus in the 4th place game Saturday night.

In the loser’s bracket CFA/HDI/BAF won 2 games before losing to West Point and finishing tied for 7th. West Point beat Tru and then CFA before losing on a walk off homer to Fish Head to finish tied for 5th. In the lower half of the loser’s bracket Chick-Fil-a beat the lower Chick-fil-a team 19-14 and then S&E 19-13 before Nitro Circus dropped down and sent them home 25-6. And in the 4th place game Nitro Circus went up 14-6 on Fish Head after 1 inning and increased the lead to 24-6 in the top of the 2nd as the air cooled off some and beat a tired Fish Head team 40-6 to advance to Sunday.

Sunday Recap

Nitro Circus 1st baseman Drew Hall hammers another long home run.

On Sunday morning in the loser’s final Nitro Circus jumped out to a 29-10 lead going into the bottom of the 5th where Anarchy freed up and hit a bunch of home runs to extend the game. Then in the bottom of the 6th Anarchy closed the game even more when a 3 run homer by Brian Zirkle cut the Nitro lead to 31-27. But Nitro added 2 runs in the top of the 7th and held Anarchy scoreless to advance to the championship 33-27.

Smash It Sports Everett Williams hits a long homer in the championship vs Nitro Circus

In the championship game a fresh Smash It Sports team jumped out to a 13-3 lead on Nitro Circus early on. The wind blew straight out at about 8 mph. Nitro came alive in the bottom of the 3rd though scoring 14 runs after a SIS throwing error to grab a 20-17 lead. In the top of the 4th Smash It answered with 13 of their own. In the 5th Nitro Circus got Smash It to put up a zero and closed the lead to 2 (32-30) but in the 7th Buddy Wolf hit a 2 run homer to go up 34-30 and Smash It held Nitro scoreless to win the game and the tournament. Josh Riley and Andrew Collins were each 5-6 and neither of them had many outs for the tournament and were named co-MVP’s. Kyle Pearson went 6-6 in the final game. It was Smash Its 3rd tournament win of the season (HOF2, Texas Legends).

Nitro’s Jordan Blanchette had the line drive stroke going all weekend.

Brandon Jonas snaps off Ricardo Lizcano.

Blanchette scores in a Nitro comeback in the championship.

Long Bomber of the Week!

Chris Greinert from Nitro Circus is the Long Bomber of the Week. He hit some creatures even with a bicep injury that pained him on each swing. Honorable mention goes to Everett Williams, Buddy Wolf, Dale Brungardt, and Lyf Nimmo.

Virginia Major Results and Awards

Smash It Outfielder Andrew Collins was co-MVP – 23-26 .885 22 RBI 10 HR

Smash Its Josh Riley was co-MVP – Riley 24-26 .923 20 RBI 6 HR

Smash It Middle Infielder Kyle Fisher was Defensive MVP

Nitro Circus Catcher Chris Greinert was Offensive MVP (I think he only made 1 out)

Team by Team Notes

1st Place – SmashIt/Thunder/Chosen/Pure/RF/BD/TDB

NY-Major Record 5-0

Smash It cruised to their 3rd tournament win of the season and will be the #1 seed for the big Windy City Classic coming up in 2 weeks. The offense which has been lacking recently was bolstered by the return of Andrew Collins from suspension. Jonas pitched most of the games but Andy did come in in relief of Jonas in the championship and got out 12 of the last 25 Nitro Circus batters and he got some of the worst foul tips and mishits of the year. Racobaldo is still nursing an injury and didn’t play so Kyle Fisher who was defensive MVP in left field a couple weeks ago in Texas was the Defensive MVP again this week but at middle infield. He is multi talented, check out some of his plays in the video highlights. Gregory, Jonas, Dunn, Wolf, Brungardt, Pearson, Martel, Riley, and Collins were all over .700 on base percentage.

2nd Place – Nitro Circus/Klutch/Team 199/BRC

MD-TBD Record 5-2

Nitro Circus finally broke through and had a big weekend beating West Point, Chick-fil-a, Fish Head, and Anarchy and only losing to the Smash It Major team twice. They switched up the offense and defense when needed. Veteran Tom Bloom was rock solid on the mound and chipped in with some key home runs. Greinert barely made an out. Dylan Shupe stood out at 3rd base making tough play after tough play on the dirt and the entire team chipped in and picked each other up. Poor Toby Letak was the victim of like 3 bad bounces, couldn’t catch a break.

3B Shupe, SS Bishop, MI Lizcano

1B Drew Hall

P Tom Bloom

3rd Place – Anarchy/SmashItSports/Beloli/OA

NY-A Record 3-2

Anarchy like Nitro Circus had a much needed good weekend. The team has a lot of talent, added Dave Bare at pitcher who came from S&E, and have a bunch of lefties that can hit for extra bases. They beat Chick-fil-a, came from behind to beat Fish Head, and then battled Smash It and Nitro Circus. A step in the right direction towards being a Major World Series team. Streets, Herren, and Laganiere were over .700 on base percentage. Herren led in home runs with 6. Moralez led in RBI with 15.

Dave Bare homer’s against Chick-fil-a

Lyf Nimmo and Brian Zirkle the faces of Anarchy bat company.

3B Shannon Smith, SS Mario Moralez, MI Dan Herren.

The new Anarchy bats.

4th Place – Fish Head/FHC/Corner House

MD-B Record 3-2

Fish Head knocked off Tru and S&E to make it to the final 4 where they jumped out to a big lead on Anarchy before eventually losing it and the game. In the loser’s bracket they kind of validated their run with a nice walk off win over West Point to finish 4th. The lineup for the 4th place game (hopefully I get this right) was CF 28 Chris Magee, LF Drew Counselman, 3B Adam Draper, 1B Tommy Barlow, P Danny Dunn, 2B Glen Jenkins, C/OF Robert Banks, OF Shamaar Coates, SS Matt Montgomery, MI Kenny King. And the veteran William Bragg did most of the pitching in those upsets. A great run by Chad Kendricks team!

3B Draper, SS Montgomery, MI Kenny King, 2B Glen Jenkins

Tied 5th – Chick-fil-a/Slugger/BAF/LBT

VA-AA Record 3-2

Chick-fil-a was playing on their home turf and S&E who was on their side of the bracket got upset by Fish Head which should have been a recipe for them to make it to the winner’s final and take their shot at Smash It. But it wasn’t meant to be as Anarchy tripped them up for the 2nd time this year and to add insult to injury their entire outfield got injured at some point. If you live in Georgia and are an available outfielder contact Chick-fil-a, they may need you for the Georgia Major this weekend. The entire team was under .700 on base. Tough weekend. They are 4-2 vs ‘AA’ though this year but it’s the ‘A’ teams that give them trouble 3-4.

3B Kashner, SS Porter, MI Alston

Tied 5th – WestPoint Softball

IN-A Record 3-2

West Point lost tough games to Nitro Circus and Fish Head in a tournament they could have made it to Sunday in. Smith at 3rd made two of the best plays of the tournament against Nitro and the offense was having a good year coming into the tournament. They added veteran Travis Dale to the roster.

3B Justin Smith, SS Bryce Randolph, MI Joe Horsley

Tied 7th – CFA/HDI/BAF

VA-C Record 2-2

The Chick-fil-a ‘C’ team beat two non conference teams to finish tied for 7th.

Tied 7th – S&E/Dan Smith

NC-AA Record 2-2

S&E had a tough weekend as the offense just didn’t produce in losses to Fish Head and Chick-fil-a. They released pitchers Dave Bare and Corey Miller and picked up Kyle Custer and Luis Mendez.