2024 Tournament Recap | Mbfoundation

2024 Meghan Burnett "Fly High" Tournament Recap

July 5-7 was the weekend for this year’s (7th) annual Meghan Burnett “Fly High” fastpitch softball tournament. The weather was great, dry fields receiving just enough precipitation during the week to provide an excellent surface when it came time for the tournament.

This tournament brings 16 teams from around New England to Wakefield to compete at the 14U and 18U levels. Usually there are a few participants who have a personal connection with Meghan whether they are coaches she played for or teammates she played or trained with who are now coaches themselves. The last few years we have been fortunate to have an umpire who was a former teammate. Programs from as far away as Burlington Vermont and as close as Saugus and Woburn played at Wakefield High School, Veterans Field, Mapleway Park, Reading High School, Lynnfield High School and Parcher Field, Saugus until only one team remained in each division. There was some excellent softball to be seen at all fields and what follows is a recap of some of the action that played out this weekend.

A new twist in this year’s tournament planning came as a result of the ongoing construction for the new Wakefield Memorial High School. Meghan Burnett Field would not be available but with the help of Dan McGrath at Wakefield Rec Dept we were introduced to Jim Sullivan at Reading Rec Dept who was able to secure fields in Reading for Friday and Saturday. We were also fortunate to be working with local long-time softball coach Dom Gasdia who after years of supporting youth softball in Wakefield and also serving as head coach for Danvers High School is currently the Reading High School Varsity Coach. The only issue with this plan was that the town of Reading has a by-law on the books that would not allow games to be played on town fields on Sundays before noon, which is when our Elimination round takes place. So Sunday could’ve been a problem if it weren’t for the help of Coach Chris Tolios and Saugus High Coach Steve Almquist. With their involvement we were able to secure Parcher Field (beside the Kasabuski Rink) in Saugus for the Sunday morning 18U elimination round.

14U Division

The Vermont Storm 14U made the strongest showing of the weekend, scoring a total of 62 runs and winning all six games they played. A close second were the Northeast Hurricanes with 57 runs and a record of 4–1 going into the championship game. The seeding after pool play was pretty consistent with the way the teams finished at the end of the weekend with the exception being the Northeast Reign, which finished noticeably better in the standings than their seeding predicted.

The standings after pool play were as follows:

Vermont Storm

Northeast Hurricanes

RES Angels-Newbury

Extra innings 14 U Prospects

Rage 14U

Northeast Reign- Carolina

New England Storm

New England Huskies

18U Vermont Storm at the end of an impressive weekend

The Northeast Reign had a strong weekend which included a game where a grand slam over the fence at Mapleway was mysteriously ruled a ground rule double. Even their opponent confirmed that it was a homerun, but to no avail. Unflustered by this setback, the Reign got busy and still came out on top 9-3.

Also the RES Angels under coach Colleen Newbury had a great weekend and showed that even though they are a young team they could hold their own with the best of them.

Rage batter about to go deep on Friday

The 14U Championship game once again pitted the Northeast Hurricanes against the Vermont Storm. Both teams looked good and showed strong offense, each of them winning several games by run-rule along the way. While both teams were clearly the best and had earned their place in the final game, only one can be the champion and this year it was the Vermont Storm’s turn.

New England Storm 18U scoring a run early on Saturday

18U Division

18U Rage had made it to the championship game 3 years in a row but had yet to win it- would this be their year?

In the 18 U division after pool play was complete, all eight teams were tied for the top four seeding spots. Ties are resolved first by which team was better in head to head competition, if that’s not an option, the team with the least runs against is the main determinant but if there is still a tie, it goes to the team with most runs scored. So using the aforementioned methods, the seeding was determined as follows:

Rage 18 U

South Shore Chaos

New Hampshire Lightning

Vermont Storm

Northeast Hurricanes

New England Storm

Extra Innings 18U

RES Angels

NE Storm Batter with the on-deck batter timing the pitcher

On Elimination Sunday, after the first round of games the top four still remained, which led to a very tight semifinal round with both games being decided by only one run.

Veterans field saw the New Hampshire Lightning hang on for a surprise victory over the higher ranked South Shore Chaos. After the game, SS Chaos coach Jeff Gauthier credited the Lightning’s excellent defensive play with the win.

Player Profile: Madison Cunha- Pitching for the NH Lightning. A 2024 graduate of Pinkerton Academy, she will be attending NHTI in the fall where she will major in Nursing and will continue her softball career. Her biggest love outside of softball is cooking.

Meanwhile, at Parcher Field in Saugus the crowd was treated to a barnburner of a performance in the Vermont Storm vs Rage contest! The Storm came out strong from the start with 2 runs in the first, to which the Rage responded with 3! Both teams held the other scoreless until the third inning when the Vermont bats came alive adding 3 more runs. Rage plated another run but at the end of the third inning Vermont still maintained their lead, 5 - 4. About this time the sun burned through and things were about to heat up in more ways than one.

The 4th inning saw the VT bats stifled in a short, 1-2-3 inning. Rage seized this opportunity and went to work manufacturing another run. After the lead off batter lined out to 3B , the next batter walked and through a combination of smart baserunning and small ball, scored the tying run, making it 5-5 after 4 innings.

With time running out, Vermont was on track to finish strong as they scored the go-ahead run and still had the bases loaded with only 1 out! Somehow Rage managed to dig deep and come up with the final 2 outs without allowing another run to score. With time expired and down by 1 run, the bottom of the inning belonged to the Rage. Five consecutive singles gave them the two additional runs they needed to secure the win and move on to the championship game.

Emma Penniman scored the tieing run in the 4th and drove-in the winning run in the 5th.

Halisa Carter (Rage) beats the throw to 1B in their 10:00 game on Sunday vs the RES Angels

The 18U Championship game pitted the New Hampshire Lightning vs the Rage. NH was first to get on the board in the first inning when Anna Stanley scored after tagging up on a fly. In the bottom half of the inning on the 13th pitch of her at bat, Ella DeLisle singled, driving in a run that tied the score at 1 - 1. Both teams battled back and forth with no runs until the fifth inning. Shyanne Glenncross and Rya Wykes each drove in a run for New Hampshire giving them a 3 - 1 lead.

In the sixth inning, Rage held New Hampshire scoreless and added two of their own when Izzy Levasseur doubled, driving in two runs that tied the game at three. Again in the seventh inning, New Hampshire was held scoreless. Then as they had done in the semi finals, Rage once again utilized smart baserunning and small ball, setting up Halisa Carter to drive in the winning run with a walk off single. Halisa was 4 for 4 on the day.

18U Championship game - Rage + NH Lightning

In addition to softball this weekend, there were two recipients of the Annual Tournament Scholarship Award. All graduating seniors who participate in the Tournament are invited to apply for this award whether they played in the tournament, in a band at the tournament or volunteered to help. The award is presented to the applicant who has consistently demonstrated the highest levels of Commitment, Leadership, Enthusiasm and Love for the game. This year’s recipients were both players on the South Shore Chaos team: Abby Greene (L) will attend and play ball at Curry College and Alyssa Edwards (R) will attend and play ball at the University of Hartford.

In Cornhole News- the Butland Family of Partridge Ln was the winner of the raffle of a custom cornhole set provided by Bob’s Cornhole Co. / Sardella Sign & Graphics.