Austin's Finest hosted a 12u friendly in North Austin and comes away undefeated in pool and bracket play going 8-0. We had a strong defensive and offensive performance out scoring our opponents 47-6. Great job ladies!! We would like to say thank you to all the teams that participated and we hope you enjoyed our tournament format. If you have any suggestions for our next event please fell free to contact us at any time. Congrats to D-Bat 98 for their 2nd place finish and to Austin Storm and Katy Cruisers for their 3rd place finish. We hope you enjoyed your time here in Austin.

10/31/2009

(7-0)

Temple, TX

Austins Finest played in the 18th Annual Monster Mash tournament and takes the championship in the 12u division! We had a great tournament both defensively and with the bats as we outscored our opponents 26-4 in bracket play. Our pitching and defense was top notch and everyone contributed offensively whether it was pinch running, batting or sacrificing all of our girls did an amazing job. Congrats on your 2nd championship in a row ladies, we are all extrememly proud of the way you played!

10/24/2009

 (6-0)

Round Rock, TX

Austins Finest played in the Blue Diamonds 12u Slug Fest tournament in the Hall of Fame Complex at Old Settlers Park in Round Rock, TX. This facility is without a doubt the best complex in our area, from batting cages to warm up areas, this place has it all! One of the more impressive areas are the pitching bullpens which we have not seen anywhere else and they are a great addition to an amazing complex.

Pool Play would begin and we drew Texas Blaze 98, we had a tough time adjusting to the pitching as we have been playing 14u all fall but we were able to score 1 run and defense came through again to hold Blaze scoreless for the win. Our second pool game placed us against the Texas Dirtbags 12u were we would get the win 5-4. Pools seeding bracket play and we would end up with the 3rd seed and would face the Texas Terror.

The bats would be hot the rest of the tournament as we took a big win 10-0 against the Terror. Sunday morning game would come against the Austin Storm were we would have another big win 12-0 to set us up against the Texas Bomber 97. We have not played this team for a very long time and it was good to see them again as they gave us a great game which ended in regulation 2-2. ITB would be big for our team as we went on a hitting spree scoring 8 runs in the top of ITB. After the big scoring effort our defense made a great play to end the game and send us to the championship!

Texas Dirtbags made a great comeback through the loser's bracket and earned the right to be in the championship. Our bats stayed hot through and would end up winning 6-1 against a great team. Congrats Dirtbags on your finish. Great job to our Austin's Finest defense as they only allowed 4 runs in bracket play! Awesome job ladies keep up the hardwork!!    

09/12/2009

(1-0-1)

Austin, TX

Austins Finest played in the 4th Annual Cotton Pickin Classic 14u tournament but once again the rain got the best of this tournament as we we were only able to play our two pool games befor mother nature would cancel this tournament. We would tie against the Freeze 14u Jacobs and would win against the Platinum 14 tournament.  

09/12/2009

  (2-2-1)

Seguin, TX 

Austins Finest played in the Scorpions Challenge 14u tournament in Seguin, Texas at Huber Ranch. This complex has some of the best fastpitch softball fields in Central Texas and we always enjoy playing here. We did not think this tournament would make at first because of all the rain we had but the crew at Huber Ranch does a great job of getting the fields ready. 

Our first pool game was against the Stix and would end in a tie, our bats were pretty silent but defense kept us in this one. Our next pool game was against the Havoc from San Antonio and we really picked it up with a win. Bracket play would begin and we drew the Texas Gators and alot of rain! We were up 1-0 when the rain came and would suspend our game until further notice. We didn't think we would play again with so much rain but the field crew worked its wonder again and we resumed play Sunday morning.

  Sunday came along and with it a win over the Gators which would lead us to a game with our sister team AF96. They always give us a great game and unfortunately for us our defense did not play well and would take the loss. Our next game would come agains the  host team Scorpions. Our bats were great in this game but there was no quit from the Scorpions as they put in a great comeback and would send us home after double ITB. It was a great game and we ended up finishing 5th.  Definetly not how we planned to finish but we found we have to work on some things to get us prepared for the next tournament.

08/16/2009

(5-1-1)

San Marcos, TX

Austin's Finest played in their first tournament of the fall and played up in the 14u division. We have big plans for the summer of 2010 were we plan on attending the ASA 12u "A" Nationals in Bloomington, IN to face the best competition in the Nation.  Having 2 of our girls hurt for this tournament we picked up 2 girls from our AF96 team to give us a hand and we also added 2 girls from our tryouts with Jory Cervantes and Michelle Deleon.

We were scheduled 3 pool games and would take wins against SA Clash and CenTex Slammers but would tie with the Texas Sting a very tough 14u team. We would get a bye in the bracket draw and would draw the SA Storm in our first bracket game. We had some big hits and were able to come away with a big win. Sunday morning would be a tough game against the Texas Sting that went into double ITB with Austin's Finest winning in the bottom of the 2nd ITB. Hill Country Slam was our next game and was a hard fought game but we played great defense and another win to secure our spot in the championship. We would face Texas Sting in the championship game and again would be a tough game for both teams. Being down by 5 runs Austin's Finest fought back to send the game into ITB but would loose the battle and take a well deserved second place finish. Congrats ladies and thanks Mariah and Big Bri for the confidence you gave our girls.

07/03/2009

FGreeley, CO 

(4-3)

Austin's Finest 97 headed to Colorado for the Sparkler tournament in Fort Collins. We had a good tournament but didn't finish like we would have but we still enjoyed ourselves none the less. The All Star was first on the agenda and our team had 5 girls selected to participate. AF97 coaches were selected to coach an All Star team with girls from the Cheyenne Extreme, Desert Thunder, KC Skinners, Warriors and Austin's Finest. The girls we coached were amazing and came away with a big win. Our own Brittany Cruz was selected by a committee to attend the ALL American tournament in Westminster were every game was televised, congrats Brittany! 

 We started off pool play against the Fort Collins Stars with a big win and moved on to a tough team from Arizona named Desert Thunder, we played a tough game and came away with a 1 run win and some new friendships. Our second day of pool play we would face the KC Skinners and their bats proved to be too much but what really hurt was the loss of one of our pitchers during the game. Vannessa Castro would break her leg on a slide to second and would not be able to return for the rest of the tournament.  Our last pool game would come against the Cheyenne Extreme were we would take the win to end with a 3-1 record and place 2nd in our pool.

Bracket play would begin and having 9 players would present a challenge to our girls. We faced the Crush and would make way too many errors but were able to come away with a 1 run win. Our next challenge would be the eventual tournament champions Wasco Diamonds, this was the most intense defensive game we played that went the entire 7 innings but we would lose 3-2. Our next game would come against Team Velocity 96 and would be a tough loss with the winning run for Velocity coming in the bottom of the last inning.

Overall we finished tied for 9th and are very proud of our 9 girls because we played with our own team unlike other teams from Austin. We were also sad because we would be losing a player with Heather Mobley moving up as she was our only 96 birthday, good luck in the future Heather and we will see you soon. 

05/30/09

(4-3)

USFA 12u "A" State Tournament 

Austin's Finest 97 played in Seguin, TX this weekend for the USFA 12u "A" state tournament. After our poor showing in Houston we were determined to make a strong showing in this tournament. We looked alot better offensively and had some amazing defensive stops this weekend. Pool play would seed bracket so every game counts. Originally scheduled to play 3 pool games, a team dropped out last second and we were re-scheduled for 4 games.

During pool play we played Diamond Angels, Texas Velocity, Humble Cobras 97 and Orange Crush Collins going finishing 3-1 and the #1 seed for our pool. Twice in pool games we found ourselves in a bases loaded, no outs situation and the defense was abe to stop any runs from scoring BOTH times! Great job ladies!

Our first bracket game was scheduled against the Texas Heat which was the #2 seed in their pool. We knew this was going to be a tough game as we played them in the Bomber Shootout in March and won in ITB. This game was no different with the score 0-0 through 5 innings of play. In this game we found ourselves again with bases loaded and no outs but the defense was strong again and held tough to get the 3 outs and not allow them to score. However the next time we faced bases loaded and 2 outs we walked a batter in and could not get our bats going to make this a game and would end up losing 1-0. Great game Texas Heat!

We would play one more game that night and would take the win over Humble Cobras 97 with some great hitting and a grandslam! Our next elimination game came against the Texas Crush and we were able to capitalize on a throwing error to score 2 runs in the top of the first inning. The score would stay that way until the 4th inning were we found ourselves in a bases loaded with 2 outs situation. A little blooper into shallow LF gave them 2 runs to tie the game. Next inning and our lead off hitter gets on with a walk, we tried moving her over with a bunt but unfortunately was popped up and 1st base made a great diving catch and was able to double up our girl on first base. We would not score any this inning and needed a stop to send the game into ITB. Texas Crush would score the single run they needed and send us home, it was a great game with some great plays. Next Stop, Fort Collins, Colorado for the Triple Crown Sparkler!