Congratulations go to the Florida Fury players who were awarded All-County Honors:

Miami Herald All-County Honors

1st Team All-Broward: Beth Peller (2009), Lauren Caplan (2010), Amanda Gomes (2011) and Hayley Reinfeld (2011)

1st Team All-Miami Dade: Jaimee Vega (2009)

2nd Team All-Broward: Mary Horton (2009), Kathryn Wilkinson (2009) and April Ortenzo (2010)

Honorable Mention All-Broward: Shanelle Rodriguez (2010), Gianna Sandstrom (2011), and Taylor Pszyk (2012)

Sun Sentinel All-County Honors

1st Team All-Palm Beach: Alyssa Gurico (2009) and Jennifer Imbres (2012)

2nd Team All-Palm Beach: Torrie Weindorf (2011), Alyssa Cheatham (2012) and Mariah Gonzales (2012)

Honorable Mention All-Palm Beach: Macey Cheatham (2012)

The Sun-Sentinel Awards for All-Broward have not been announced yet and they will be posted as soon as they are.

Even though the Fury Organization were the hosts for the Winter Signature Showcase at Mills Pond Park in Fort Lauderdale on January 2-4, hospitality only extends so far.  The Florida Fury 18 and under team defeated all comers to be crowned the Signature Showcase Champions. 

But in truth, all of the participating teams were winners.  The weather was beautiful, the park was exceptional, and numerous college coaches attended.  The teams enjoyed 7 inning games, with optional extended play if time remained, and got to use the innovative situational play feature that made it more exciting for the fans and college coaches, and more challenging for the teams.

And for 4 of the teams, the opportunity to play in the internet webcast broadcast games was a lot of fun. The webcast games, broadcast by Softball Magazine and sponsored by Fastpitch Headquarters and LDI, were played on Sunday at 1pm and 3pm.  Being good hosts, the Fury organization offered the games to the Tampa Mustangs and Florida Vipers, and to the Ft Lauderdale Lightning and Perrine Stingers.  The games were broadcast live, but will also be available via archives within a few days. 

The college coaches in attendance paid a lot of attention to the Florida Fury players. Florida State, Bucknell, FAU, and Valdosta State spent much of their time watching our girls.  The match-up between the Fury 16s and Fury 18s on Sunday was viewed by a few of them.  Other coaches seen at our games were Toledo, Tampa, and Santa Fe. Hillsborough also attended.

We are very happy with our Inaugural Signature Showcase. It was a HUGE success and it bodes well for the future events we will be hosting.

Florida Fury 16 player, Trissja-Rey Lehtio, won the NFL Pepsi PUNT, PASS & KICK Team Championship at Dolphin Stadium on November 16.  She is the Miami Dolphin Champion in the 14/15 Division, and is now eligible to advance to the National Finals in January.

Congratulations to T-Rey!!

Central Florida ASA Championship - Runner up

West Central Florida ASA Championship - 5th Place

South Florida ASA Championship - Champions

Carolina Dynamites Showcase Championship - 9th Place

PBG Swamp Classic Invitational - Champions

Florida Cup Championship - Runner up

ASA/USA National Championship in Moline IL - 17th Place

Our trip to Moline was definitely an adventure.  From beginning to end it did not disappoint. It started off on Saturday in a beautiful charter bus as we all settled in for a 24 hour trip. Everything was going great until we were just south of Atlanta when the charter bus experienced a severe oil leak. But where most teams have a team nurse or a team trainer, Florida Fury has a team diesel mechanic!!!  Shanelle's dad, Tony, is a master diesel mechanic and he was able to change out a part in about 2 hours while the girls ate dinner, and we were back on the road with minimal delay.

We arrived in Moline finally after 28 hours, in time for team check-in on Sunday. Then while Linda and Joe went to the Manager's Meeting, the rest of the team went for lunch at TGIFriday. After lunch we checked in to the hotel and then had a nice practice at a field nearby. Dinner was at Happy Joes, a local pizza joint whose taco pizza and cheese stixs were out of this world.

Our Monday pool game was versus the Olathe Rockets from Kansas. We led 2-0 for most of the game but gave up 3 runs in the late innings to lose 3-2. It was a good competitive game and one we clearly should have won but we have to keep our focus better and go for the kill when we have the chance.

Tuesday we played Roseville Heat from California. They jumped out on us first but the Fury didn't take it lying down and we came back with a vengeance and won the game 4-2 with timely hitting and good pitching. It was good to get that first win at Nationals, and it was fun beating a California team.

Wednesday started the elimination round and we could not have gotten a worse draw.  Our first game was versus the Illinois Extreme Havoc, the local powerhouse who was full of college players and signed seniors. The first inning killed us as errors resulted in the Havoc scoring 7 runs, 6 of them unearned.  Even though our defense then shut them down for the next 5 innings, our offense could not get off the ground. The final score was 12-0...not the game we wanted to play...we gave up more runs in this one game than we gave up in total at any other tournament all summer!! But we know what we have to do and we will come back.

On Thursday we are in the loser's bracket and we have to win to stay in the tournament. We played the San Jose Strikkers from California and we came out ready to beat someone senseless.  We took control of the game right away by scoring 2 in the first and continued to pound them until we run ruled them after 5 innings 10-1.  It felt really great to beat another California team and to send them home. The girls played great. Since this was our only game on Thursday, we decided to take the girls straight from the park to the Field of Dreams in Dyersville Iowa, the set of the movie "Field of Dreams". We stopped for lunch, then picked up the movie to watch on the way, and drove 1.5 hours to the location. It was amazing!!  We played on the field, took lots of pictures, and even walked into the corn fields. The girls got souvenirs and we had a wonderful team outing. It really inspired the girls. We now were ready to play on Friday.

Friday we have one goal...win! To make it to Saturday we have to win 3 games. The first game was against the Lady Lasers Blue from Ohio and it went extra innings. We beat them 4-3 in 8 innings. Our second game was against the Atlanta Vipers and we beat them 7-4. It was a scourcher in Moline with temperatures in the 90s but that won't stop the Florida Fury. Our third game was against the Missouri Firestix and we beat them 6-4. We have made it to the top 17!

Our game on Saturday was at 8am versus the South Dakota Flash. We had many opportunities to score but our best one was halted by a bad call at third base. We continue to fight throughout the game, having runners in scoring position many times, but we are just not able to get them to the plate. We lose 2-0 and our run at Nationals is over.  

We are so proud of our girls and what they accomplished. In addition to finishing in 17th place, we were one of 4 Florida teams who made it that far in the tournament. No other state had that many teams left in the tournament on Saturday morning. And surprisingly there were NO California teams who even made it to Saturday. So many of the teams were full of college and signed players, while we did it with high schoolers...it was a great accomplishment.

All throughout the tournament we had lots of college coaches watching us play. All of our girls will be hearing from schools after this event. They were very impressed with the level of play of the Fury and they will continue to watch us in the future. It was a phenomenal summer for this team!

While we were at Nationals, the girls had the opportunity to meet Mitchel Musso from the Hannah Montana TV show.  He was staying at our hotel, and the girls got his autograph and had their photo taken with him.

Some people said that it really was not Mitchel, but I did a little research and found that he was in town doing a show with Corbin Bleu. He was traveling by motorcoach so it was his bus that was parked in the back parking lot next to our bus.

I found a couple of articles about his visit to Davenport and I have attached them below.

Also be sure to check out the photos of our girls with him under Albums, in Famous Faces.

The Fury played in the Inaugural Florida Cup at Palmetto Bay Park in South Miami-Dade County. Monday and Tuesday pool games utilized situation play that was a lot of fun. Scoring was up and defensive strengths and weaknesses were highlighted on all teams.

Elimination play started on Wednesday and the Florida Fury advanced to the Championship round on Thursday. On Thursday night, we beat the Miami Stingrays-Gator, who are also headed to ASA Nationals, 3-0 in the semifinal game, and then lost to the Miami Lady Canes 3-0 in the Championship Game.  Congrats to the Lady Canes! Florida Fury finished second. 

For more information on this tournament including standings and schedules, go to www.fastpitchheadquarters.com and link to "Team", then "Tournaments, Camps and Clinics", then "Florida Cup".

And be sure to see the photos under Albums.

On Thursday we played 2 practice games at Brian Piccolo Park. We beat Coral Springs Panthers Blue and New York Panthers Blue. We even had a few college coaches watching us that night.

On Friday morning the tournament started as we beat FL Xtreme 7-1 while about 20 college coaches watched our girls. Then we played and tied the Dacula Lady Falcons from GA 1-1 in a very competitive match. The Falcons are Nationals-bound just like us, and we look forward to seeing them in Moline. 

On Saturday we played the Gainesville Warriors and beat them 11-0. Beth Peller hit an inside the park homerun! It was very exciting to see all of the college coaches who made the trip to Piccolo for the first game of the day. In the afternoon, we did not have enough players available to play so to avoid a forfeit our 6 freshmen and sophomores joined with the young players of the Miami Stingrays 16u team to play the Heatwave. These youngsters had no problem hitting the Heatwave pitcher or striking out their big hitters, but a couple of youthful errors gave Heatwave the win. But the big winners were Florida Fury who were not forced out of the tournament by a forfeit and the Miami Stingrays 16u team who were able to get an extra game of exposure after only being scheduled 3 in the tournament. 

On Sunday we played the Alabama Skyhawks and beat them 6-1. The Palm Beach Pride Alleycats were our last game of the tournament and we beat them 7-0.  After the game, numerous college coaches were waiting to talk to our girls. It is a very exciting time for these rising seniors as so many schools are clamoring after them. 

The Florida Fury had an outstanding tournament, outscoring our 5 opponents 32-3. But most importantly we had over 50 college coaches watch our girls this weekend and they ALL were very impressed with the quality of play and the character of the team. And they LOVED the Fury Fans!!!

And be sure to see the photos under Albums.

Florida Fury had a great showcase!! Even though our Saturday games were rained out, we still were able to play 4 games. Our girls are playing relaxed and confident. Everyone is doing their job and succeeding on the field. We had a ton of college coaches watching us....North Florida, Alabama, Tennessee State, FAMU, FGCU, Northwest Florida College, Emory, Florida Southern, Jacksonville, South Florida CC, UCF, Florida, Georgia Tech, Gardner Webb, FAU, Indian River CC, Tallahassee CC, Stetson, Brevard CC, and Palm Beach Atlantic were the most noticable. Our girls are attracting the top schools and the college coaches are very impressed.

We did not want to give the girls 2 weekends with no tournament play so we entered the Palm Beach Gardens Swamp Classic. This is a local tournament in Palm Beach County that is one of the best in South Florida.

There were 12 teams in the 18u division. The girls played great and we won the tournament. We were undefeated, with 1 tie on Saturday. We hit the ball quite well, run ruling one team on Saturday and then in the Championship game on Sunday, we run ruled another. Florida Fury keeps rolling along.

As a reward for playing so well at this tournament and for the past 3 weeks, we are giving the girls a break. No practice this week and no games this coming 4th of July weekend. We hope that players...and parents...get some well deserved rest and relaxation, and then we will gear up for our July showcase tournament schedule.  Have a Happy 4th of July!!

The team accomplished their goals this weekend. We got a ton of exposure in the pool games and during the elimination round we made it to Sunday and the Top 16. Out of 76 teams we finished 9th.  Florida Fury keeps rolling along.

And special congratulations go to Amanda Gomes who had 2 Grand Slams this weekend...one versus Team DeMarini and one versus Lady Bombers Gold.  Our girls get on base and set the table for the big bats who come through when needed.  It is fun to watch this team play!!

We had a phenomenal showcase experience. We beat Blazing Angels Gold 3-0 on Friday, and we beat Polar Crush Gold 1-0 and Rhode Island Thunder Gold 3-2 on Saturday. On Sunday we beat the Colorado Bruins 3-0, but then in the Pennsbury game we had a bad inning and ended up losing 6-1. All in all, it was a great trip to Pennsylvania. The girls played hard and played well.  We had a tremendous number of college coaches at our games and our juniors will definitely be receiving letters from those coaches. We even had an adventure as we traveled by train to NYC on Friday night. The girls had a lot of fun, and a lot was accomplished.  Congrats to the Fury.

Be sure to see photos of our visit to NYC under Albums.

Congratulations to Jaimee Vega who was awarded 2008 Louisville Slugger/NFCA High School All-Region First Team Honors.

We won!! The girls played hard and played focused. We beat Plantation Pressure, West Pines Diamond Dusters-Phil, and Pines Thunder on Saturday. Then on Sunday we beat Pines Thunder again in the Championship Game. We won the berth to the USA/ASA 18u National Championship in Moline IL. Congratulations to the girls!!

Be sure to see photos under Albums.

Congratulations go to the 3 Florida Fury girls who were awarded Florida All-State Honors:

1st Team All-State:  Jaimee Vega (2009) and Beth Peller (2009) 

3rd Team All-State:  Hayley Reinfeld (2011)

FLORIDA FURY PLAYERS RECEIVE 2008 ALL-COUNTY HONORS

Congratulations go to the Florida Fury players who were awarded All-County Honors:

Sun-Sentinel All County Honors

1st Team All-Broward: Beth Peller (2009)

2nd Team All-Palm Beach: Caitlin Dent (2009)

2nd Team All-Broward: Taylor Manus (2009) and Hayley Reinfeld (2011)

Honorable Mention All-Broward: Britanie Block (2008), Mary Horton (2009), Courtney Reinfeld (2011), Taylor Kisner (2011), and Amanda Gomes (2011)

Miami Herald All-County Honors

1st Team All-Broward: Beth Peller (2009) and Hayley Reinfeld (2011)

1st Team All-Miami Dade: Jaimee Vega (2009)

2nd Team All-Broward: Britanie Block (2008) and Mary Horton (2009) 

3rd Team All-Broward: Taylor Manus (2009), Courtney Reinfeld (2011), and Amanda Gomes (2011)

Honorable Mention All Broward: Kathryn Wilkinson (2009) and Tayler Kisner (2011)

We are not playing in the Lakeland Qualifier. Due to final exams and other issues we are going to stay home and have practice on Saturday and Sunday at 10am.

The team came out a little flat in our first game and we ended up in the losers bracket real quick. However, after that, the girls kicked it into high gear and won 4 in a row, eliminating 3 teams in the process, until we ran out of steam on Sunday afternoon. We finished 5th out of 16 teams. 

We are looking forward to the Palmetto Bay Qualifier where we will finally have our whole team together.

The team did really well at the Altamonte Springs Qualifier. We finished second. After winning 4 straight games we lost a heartbreaker in the Championship Game to the Tampa Mustangs Walt who we had previously defeated in the tournament. The score was 6-5 in 11 innings. We then had to play them again in the IF game at midnight, but we had run out of gas, and lost again.

But the word is out...Florida Fury is Too Fast and Too Furious!!

We are very excited that the college coaches from Florida Atlantic University, Lynn University and Palm Beach Community College are going to attend our practice/workout on Sunday, April 6.

This is a great opportunity for the girls to show their stuff even before the summer season gets going.

See you there!!

We had our first tryout and a very important organizational meeting on Sunday, February 24 at 1pm. The turnout was fantastic! The girls who attended had a great workout/tryout, and the parents were introduced to the team staff and learned all about our plans for the summer.

On March 16, at 1pm, all of the girls who have been chosen for the team, and their parents, met to handle team business and size uniforms. Some new girls also came for tryouts. It was an exciting day as the new uniform and logo were unveiled.

The team roster is pretty much set. All team members have been notified and signed. No additional tryouts have been scheduled. If you would like to possibly tryout for the Florida Fury, you need to contact Coach Joe Cotrone at 305-218-0903.