Baseball tourney starts today

Published 10:00 am Saturday, April 21, 2012

A massive youth baseball tournament begins today in Valdosta and Lowndes County.

The United States Specialty Sports Association’s (USSSA) Georgia/Florida Showdown will begin today at 8:30 a.m. The games will be played at Freedom Park and South Lowndes Park.

Forty teams are set to participate in the event, which will bring in an estimated $300,000-$400,000 economic impact to the local community.

The teams participating in the tournament have traveled from as far south as Miami and as far north as Woodstock. With so many teams traveling from out of town, many hotel rooms have been booked for the weekend. It was reported that one individual team from Jacksonville reserved 30 rooms for the weekend.

Age groups 9-12 will play their games at Freedom Park, while the 14-year old age group will play games at South Lowndes. Overall, 19 total fields will be utilized for the tournament.

Both parks were renovated during the winter months, which included laser grading the infield and the implementation of new infield dirt.

Rain is forecast for much of the weekend, and according to Valdosta-Lowndes County Parks and Recreation Authority president George Page, the fields will hold the rain and the weather should not affect the play of the tournament.

The tournament is the second annual Border War event between the two states, but this weekend marks the first time it will be played in Valdosta.

“It will be the absolute best 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14-year-old teams coming out of the state of Georgia to face Florida,” Bubba Smith, Director of Tournament Operations for the USSSA said at the VLPRA’s November meeting, which is when the tournament was originally announced. “Obviously, it is a real competitive tournament that we put together, but it is real exciting to give the teams opportunities to mingle with each other.”

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