A softball tournament held in Hawke's Bay every year for a quarter-century is set to go ahead this weekend despite fears that flooding of its diamonds in Hastings could cause its cancellation for the first time.
The ISA New Zealand Classic Softball Tournament, which started as the Lion Red North Island Classic in 1996, will be played at Akina Park and feature eight teams from Hawke's Bay, Wellington and Hutt Valley.
The Covid-19 crisis means there will be no teams from Auckland and Waikato, but it does come at a time of some rare depth in Hawke's Bay softball with five clubs now contesting the Bay's Senior A grade.
Four of them are in this weekend's tournament which organiser Craig Waterhouse says is as a result of the pandemic New Zealand's biggest pre-Christmas men's softball tournament this year.