CHECK out the promos for this weekend's North Island Classic men's softball tournament in Hastings.
Craig Waterhouse, organiser of the Just Softball-sponsored 10-team event at Akina Park, mentions entries from three Hawke's Bay teams - Fast Pitch, who won the tournament last year and in 2014, Saints and Maraenui Pumas. However, Waterhouse could easily have put Wellington competition leaders and this weekend's favourites Poneke Kilbirnie down as a Bay team.
"There's seven of us from the Bay so hopefully the Hawke's Bay crowd will get behind us too," catcher-outfielder Callum Carson said.
Carson is one of the heroes for the Junior Black Sox team which finished second at their June-July World Series in Michigan when pipped 2-1 by Japan in the final. He will be joined by fellow Bay players Black Sox utility Jovaan Hanley, former Black Sox outfielder Campbell Makea, former Dodgers infielder Josh Gettins and the former Fast Pitch trio of Te Rangi Chadwick, Rongo Rapea and Stirling Bartlett.
A former Puma, 18-year-old Carson opted to play for the glamour Wellington club this summer in an attempt to lift his standard of play and the early signs suggest the move has paid off.