United States women’s national softball team pitcher and first baseman Valerie Arioto. (Photo by Christina Ferrante.)
By Jashvina Shah
In less than a month, Ewing’s Moody Park will host one of the biggest sporting events the county has ever seen—an exhibition game between the United States Softball and college softball all-star teams.
Ewing is one of seven stops on the national team’s list before the softball squad travels to Toronto for the Pan American Games, which will last from July 15-26.
The bid to host the U.S. softball team was placed by Rick Wayne, who works with a Ewing-based softball organization Xtreme Dimensions. The organization hosts camps, tournaments, clinics, and college showcases.
Wayne has experience working with the facilites at Armstrong Park and Moody Park, so he decided to place the bid.
The U.S. softball team will visit Oklahoma City; Houston; Waldorf, Maryland; Kansas City, Missouri; and Irvine, California. After Ewing, the team will travel to Findlay, Ohio before going to Toronto.
To prepare for the U.S. softball team’s arrival, Ewing will replace the hardball infield, and place a shorter fence in the outfield to make room for more bleachers.
“It’s a big event,” Capuano said. “There aren’t too many municipalities in the country that get to have the national team. I know it’s going to be a tremendous amount of work to get Moody Park ready for this, but I’m sure just like in the past, whether it was local events or Babe Ruth World Series and so forth. I’m sure [they’ll] do a great job hosting it.”
Ewing is no stranger to big events on the diamond—the town hosted the 1993 Babe Ruth World Series, which brought a lot of tourism to Ewing that summer. The township hopes to achieve something similar with the softball game, just on a smaller scale.
“Everybody we talked to has been very positive,” Ewing recreation director Ted Forst said. “It’s going to bring a lot of people to the community, a lot of attention to the community and to softball as a whole.”
The game at Moody Park will take place on July 11. July 10 will feature a clinic at Armstrong Park and a dinner at the Trenton Country Club.
“Everybody’s excited to have an opportunity to bring this type of event to Ewing, and it should be an exciting few days for Ewing,” Forst said. “It’s the U.S. National Team’s last stop before they head to the PanAm games in Canada, so it’s definitely an honor to host this type of an event.”
The team’s arrival cements Ewing’s growing softball culture. The town has several travel teams, and most local softball players attend clinics and take private pitching and hitting lessons in the area.
“Ewing softball, Ewing girls’ softball and Ewing Edge, which is the travel component, have been around for years and have always had solid programs with good teams,” Forst said.
Last season, Ewing High School softball advanced to the NJSIAA Group III final. The program has produced players who have played collegiately, and 14 players have passed the 100-hit mark in the school’s history. Head coach Dan Bernoski said about 24 of his high school payers also participate in travel softball.
Bernoski, who has coached at the varsity level for 31 years, has seen the improvement in both the quality of and participation in the sport.
“The pitching has gotten much better from what I have seen. And I think the hitting has gotten a lot better to counteract that,” Bernoski said.
The matchup at Moody comes shortly after the end of the Women’s College World Series, an event that allowed Ewing’s softball players to see some of the best athletes in the country on television.
Now, they’ll get to see them in person, and many of the girls are viewing it as an educational experience.
“[Ewing’s softball players] just watched them play a couple weeks ago and they know four or five of them,” U-18 Ewing softball travel coach John Capuano said. “I know a lot of them are talking about either going after, getting there early, watching them warm up and just seeing how skilled they are.”
The U.S. softball team features a roster filled with current and former collegiate softball players, including several who played in the College World Series. Sierra Romero and Kelsey Stewart faced off in the finals, as Florida defeated Michigan.
“I think they’re going to just be enthusiastic about seeing them play and meeting them, because they’re kind of like heroes,” Bernoski said. “If you’re a softball player like our girls or the little girls, they probably have aspirations to get at that level, maybe get a college scholarship and maybe to reach that level.”
This is the first large-scale event Moody Park has hosted since 1993’s Babe Ruth World Series, and Forst said the township used that experience as a way to gauge how well the park could handle large crowds.
“There were large crowds and of course that sort of went on for eight days,” he said. “It was similar-sized crowds and the same field and facility and it went very well.”
Back then, Bernoski said he hosted some of the players from Puerto Rico in his home.
“The community really embraced it,” he said. “I think people from all over the country embraced it. There were an average of 5,000 people over at Moody Park per game, and I think the county will be the same way for the softball, not just Ewing but it’s all of Mercer County will be there.”
Forst expects a similar turnout for the Saturday softball game, possibly drawing crowds of 4,000 to 5,000 people.
For tickets, visit xtremedimensionsinc.com.
,
