TANYA PERRY PHOTOGRAPHY
NEWPORT — The Newport Elite Tigers 12U Softball team is heading to the Softball Nationals Tournament in Myrtle Beach, C.C. after a long winter of preparation.
The team is comprised of 10 girls from Newport and 1 from Claremont. All the girls have put in an incredible amount of hard work to get to this point, since the team was selected in September 2018.
The tournament will be held June 20-27 and was made possible by sponsorships and an incredible amount of fundraising. The girls needed to raise just over $23,000 to make this trip possible covering registration fees and housing for 11 girls and four coaches.
Newport and the surrounding areas have responded in a very generous way and the girls have reached $31,500 since May 2018. They have received $3,600 from local business sponsorships and $27,900 from hard work and events they put on.
The team is coached by Anthony Lord, Jeremy Clement, Keith McAllister and Shawn O’Connor. The team is comprised of Newporters Tanya Sanchez, Emmah O’Connor, Alexis Durgin, Peyton Blackinton, Eden Ritondo, Zoey Lord, Natasha Carpenter, Torrence Williams, Nevaeh Caron, MacKrissa Decato and Zoie Stevens from Claremont.
The team will be staying at a hotel with full kitchens to help minimize food expenses for families. The team will also be also be competing in four additional tournaments along with Myrtle Beach. The Elite Tigers competed Memorial Day weekend in Concord finishing third out of eight teams,
On June 8th and 9th they participated in the Brawl at the Beach in Hampton. They won four games and lost in the semifinals finishing in third place out of 10 teams. The next tournaments after Myrtle Beach are July 19-21 at the Summer of Chaos (Laconia) and Aug. 2-4 Summer Slam (Waterville, Maine)
Although the team hopes to compete against high-level competition in Myrtle Beach, the expectation is to have fun, make memories and team bonding. This is the biggest stage most of these girls will ever play on and we hope to make this a once in a lifetime trip.
The Girls will participate in Opening and Closing Ceremonies, Skills Competition, Pin Trading and Glow party. They also have an opportunity to be selected and play in the Nationals All Star Game.
This program was created several years ago in hopes of keeping cost down and offering high level travel ball to a less fortunate demographic area. Instead of paying other areas $1,000 plus dollars to play, we would start our own program and build a team that would benefit the local area.
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