Crush to welcome 82 teams for tournament

| June 7, 2012 9:15 PM

COEUR d'ALENE - The 15th annual Coeur d'Alene Crush girls fastpitch softball tournament will be held June 8-10, with 82 teams competing at seven different venues in Coeur d'Alene and Hayden - making this the largest girls fastpitch softball tournament in the northwest.

The 10-and-under division will compete at Woodland Middle School, 12U at Finucane Park, 14-U at Ramsey Park, 16-U at McEuen Park and Memorial Field and the 18-U at Coeur d'Alene High and Sunset Park.

Games begin Friday at Ramsey Park at 5 p.m. Saturday play begins at 8 a.m. at all locations and concludes at approxiametely 7:30 p.m.

Championship bracket play begins Sunday at 8 a.m. with the championships taking place at 3 p.m. at Ramsey Park and Finucane Park.

There will be 10 teams from Canada, 13 teams from Montana, seven teams from Oregon, 12 Idaho teams and 40 teams from various parts of Washington.

Local teams representing Idaho will be the Coeur d’Alene Crush, Dry-Ice, Northwest Wildfire and Northwest Extreme.

For the third year in a row, the Northwest Collegiate Umpire Camp will be a part of the Crush Softball tournament. There will be 50-plus umpires attending the camp and all are college umpires with different levels of experience working to improve their softball mechanics.

Many of these umpires have Division 1 college regional, super regional and World Series experience. The camp will be held at Ramsey Park and all games will have three umpires.

Information: Chris Costa (208) 818-4543 or visit www.crushsoftball.org