The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs?@tribunemedia.net

WITH the teams preparing for the New Providence Softball Association's postseason, the Bahamas Softball Federation is still unsure if the eventual fastpitch champions will get a chance to play in a national round-robin tournament this year.

With two of their affiliated member islands adversely affected by the destruction left behind by Hurricane Dorian in Abaco and Grand Bahama, BSF president Ted Miller said they are looking forward to staging an All-Star Classic to help raise funds to assist those in need.

Miller confirmed that at present, just the NPSA and the Eleuthera Softball Association are playing softball.

But he noted that the ESA has already indicated that they will have some financial challenges in sending two teams to participate in the nationals.

The nationals, which decides the top male and female fastpitch softball team in the country, is originally scheduled for October 31 to November 1 at the Baillou Hills Sporting Complex. Miller said they are contemplating if they change to staging the All-Star Classic if they will remain with those dates or postpone it to a week or two.

"We know that whatever we do with the nationals, it's not going to be business as usual," Miller said. "What we discussed is having a National All-Star where we try to get all of the islands involved in softball that haven't been affected, bring an All-Star team so we can have a tournament and make it a fundraiser to assist Abaco and Grand Bahama.

"We know that Abaco isn't going to be able to play anymore this year, Grand Bahama isn't going to be able to play anymore and Eleuthera, because they got their season off the ground so late, they expressed that they will not be financially stable to bring two teams to Nassau for the Nationals."

With the BSF exhausting a lot of their funds to send the women's national team to the pre-Olympic qualifying tournament that was staged in Surrey, Canada, Miller said they would probably only be able to assist the visiting island associations with hotel rooms, in addition to providing ground transportation.

"We would expect for the islands to get their teams into New Providence," Miller said.

While the NPSA is the only league which has completed a full regular season, Miller said they may look at the possibility of sending their two championship teams to Eleuthera to play in a series of games to determine this year's national champions.

"It wouldn't be a round-robin tournament as such. We will have to work out the logistics and see how we can do it," Miller said. "That is something that we will look at when we meet later this week."

In the meantime, the NPSA is expected to complete its regular season tonight at the Banker's Field. The Sunshine Auto Wildcats and the CS Enterprise Hitmen have already clinched the ladies and men's pennants respectively.

Their playoffs are scheduled to start either on Thursday or Saturday night.