The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THE New Providence Softball Association completed its 2017 season by crowning its champions in the Godfrey ‘Gully’ Burnside best-of-seven championship series.

While the ladies’ outcome came down to the seventh and final game, the men’s series was stopped abruptly in a four-game sweep. League president Henry Dean said at the beginning of the season that it was going to be an interesting year with a few less teams than the year before.

The championships bore witness of that.

The Sunshine Auto Wildcats, a collection of the older players in the league, survived the battle of the fittest as they dethroned the Johnson’s Lady Truckers to regain the title they last held four years ago.

Four years ago when they were crowned champions, Mary ‘Cruise’ Sweeting was the mainstay and indicated that she was on her way and heading into retirement.

Four years later, she was back at the helm and she once again led the Lady Wildcats and they managed to hoist the trophy as she shared the most valuable player honours with another savvy veteran in second sacker Rebecca Moss, who led their offensive attack.

On the other hand, the Hitmen repeated as champions, but they did it in an unlikely fashion.

Who would have thought that the BTC Elite Warriors, the pennant winners, would end up defaulting game four in the championship?

In what is the premier league on the island, how can a team not have enough players to play a championship game? I can understand that they were trailing 3-0, but they could still show up and play the game for what it’s worth.

There have been many issues that the league was faced with during the course of the season and it spilled over to the postseason. Maybe some of those issues had something to do with it.

Whatever it was, the Hitmen are back to play in the nationals this weekend in the Banker’s Field and they will join the Lady Wildcats in repeating the NPSA.

Their ace Alcott Forbes said after falling short of getting the title last year, they are back for an encore and this time they intend to keep the title in New Providence.

If they win, it will be the first national crown for Forbes, who continues to demonstrate that he, like Sweeting, is one of the top pitchers in the country.

The nationals this weekend, by the way, is being held in honour of Rozina Taylor, the chief scorer and statistician for both the NPSA and the BSF.

It’s good to see persons like Taylor, who has made a valuable contribution in giving back to the sport that she has played at a very high level for a number of years.

Now she’s getting her daughter Desiree Taylor, who has also quit playing the game, to assist in the scorer’s booth to ensure that the games are properly recorded. Kudos to Taylor for a job well done.

Hurricane Relief

We should commend Lourawls ‘Tum Tum’ Nairn and his Michigan State Spartans, who are gearing up to put on an exhibition game against the University of Georgia Bulldogs on Monday at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

According to the reports, the two teams will face each other in an attempt to help raise some funds to assist the hurricane relief efforts in Georgia and the Bahamas.

Spartans’ head coach Tom Izzo, with Nairn at the helm, was in the Bahamas last November to play in the Battle 4 Atlantis on Paradise Island.

And so Izzo said with Nairn returning as their senior point guard and team captain, they thought it was only fitting to reach out to assist the Bahamas as well as Puerto Rico and the Miami, Houston and Georgia regions in the United States.

It’s the first such gesture that has been announced by any college teams that have Bahamians involved, but it’s one that Izzo is hoping will affect others in the future.

It’s similar to what some of the players, including Grand Bahamian Chavanno ‘Buddy’ Hield, of the Sacramento Kings, and teams in the National Basketball Association have done.

We just hope that whatever assistance or funds raised during the exhibition game is sent to the Bahamas and will be channelled in the right direction as there have been so many issues of not all of the right people benefitting from such hurricane relief efforts in the past.