The DeMarini Invitational Showcase kicks off Wednesday night in the Chicago area with two games and then goes full speed Thursday, Friday and Saturday with the championship taking place Sunday.

Over 200 teams applied, but only 44 elite ones made the grade and FloSports will be there streaming the games as well as covering the action in person!

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There are some intriguing reasons to watch the tourney games, which is a great opportunity for top teams to hone their sills with nationals less than a month away… here are five of note:

1. PGF 18U up in the air?

The run for the PGF 18U National Championship just got a whole lot more interesting! Many were ready to concede the title to last year’s champs, the OC Batbusters, but Mike Stith’s team lost at the Boulder IDT in the semis to the Beverly Bandits who went on to win it all.

And, oh by the way…

2. Will the Illinois clubs be ungracious hosts?

Bill Conroy’s Beverly Bandits team, along with the Illinois Chill led by Gerry Quinn, will be hosting the DeMarini Invitational Showcase.

The Bandits Premier 16U team won that age division in Longmont and the 18U Chill team also did very well in Boulder last week making it to the Elite 8.

These teams will be playing in their backyard and definitely will want to represent the Land of Lincoln as local pride is at stake. There’s more incentive now, however, for teams to come in and beat them, especially, the Bandits as they look like one of the top teams in the nation now.

3. How will the Batbusters look?

This isn’t Mike Stith and Gary Haning’s team, but there are two excellent Batbuster teams coming in and they will have a little more incentive to represent the Golden State now.

Ken Briggs’s 16U team has Pac-12 talent including pitcher Maddy Dwyer (Stanford), third baseman Hannah Martinez (Arizona) and middle infielder Abby Robertson (Utah).

Clay Lara’s 18U team has 13 committed players including Big Ten commits so they’re talented too.

4. Great pitching

There will be a lot of highly regarding pitchers taking the field over the next week including two of the best who happen to be in the Bandits organization: Miranda Elish (Oregon, 2016) and Alexis Holloway (Notre Dame, 2017).

Holloway is rated as the No. 1 player overall in the Hot 100 for her class and Elish No. 2.

Another one to watch from the host Bandits is Montana Fouts (Alabama) who is rated as one of the top three pitchers in the 2018 class and the No. 8 prospect overall. She’s 6-foot-1 and throws in the high 60’s and will be entertaining to watch!

Then you have the Birmingham Thunderbolts who have major college talent in Madi Moore (Alabama) and T Statman (Arizona) to go with speed and power bats.

Sprinkle in other elite pitchers like Maddie Seifert of St. Louis Chaos (Penn State), Caroline Hedgecock (Marylan) and Olivia Kinsey from DeMarini Aces (Oregon) and you could see a team catch fire and ride their ace to the championship game on Sunday.

5. Lots of young talent

Of the 44 teams lining up at the one venue–Ackerman Park in Glen Ellyn, Ill.—24 will be playing 16U (two are 14U powers that have the horses to play up).

If you want to see the future stars in the sport, both club and college, this will be a great opportunity to do so.

Some of the 16U teams to watch (along with the Batbusters-Briggs team mentioned above): Tampa Mustangs-TJ (Fla.), Atlanta Vipers-Palazzo (Ga.), three Beverly Bandits teams–Tyrell, DeMarini and Premier (Ill.) Wichita Mustangs (Kan.), Southern Force-Bloom, Lady Lightning Gold Midwest, a pair of Jersey Intensity teams, Hannigan and Conover, Ohio Outlaws Premier, and Washington Ladyhawks to name a few.

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