Whatever It Takes wins state Wiffleball tourney

It was serious business for the players of the eight teams in Saturday's slowpitch Wiffleball state championships at Gaiser Park in Seymour.

They were vying for the opportunity to qualify for the nationals, which will return to Seymour on Oct. 24.

Whatever It Takes, whose team members hail from North Vernon and Bedford, defeated the Seymour Bombshots in the best-of-3 format to earn state champion status. Both teams, however, qualify for the nationals.

The event featured round robin play, followed by a single-elimination tournament.

Whatever It Takes defeated the No. 20 team in the country, Warsaw Whitecats, and the No. 1 Diamond Dawgs of Kentucky to make the finals, while the Bombshots beat the up-and-coming Kings of Crash of Kentucky and the No. 18 Backyard Ballers of Goshen to make the finals.

The National Wiffleball Federation, which was created five years ago in Paducah, Ky., coordinated the event. President Greg Wilcher runs the state tournaments in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Georgia.

Wilcher's uncle, Everett, was the athletic director over the parks in Seymour, and the softball field at Gaiser Park where Saturday's tourney took place is named after him.

About 15 years ago, Greg said Everett started running a fall tournament at Shields Park, and that would draw anywhere from 20 to 40 teams. Saturday's tourney drew seven teams, and Greg and his cousin, John Wilcher, Midwest director of the federation, were hoping for more.

That could change on July 18, when Wiffleball returns to Seymour for the Hoosier Classic. Teams can still register to be a part of that and play either slowpitch or fastpitch. The Seymour Invitational will be Aug. 8 and the Indiana Region Playoff will be Aug. 29, and on Oct. 24, teams will converge on Seymour once again for the slowpitch nationals.

"We'd love to see about 30, 40 teams show up in July and play," Greg said.

The federation's first national tourney was held in Savannah, Ga., and the last two years it has been in Paducah. Teams from California to New England to Florida to everywhere in between are ranked.

This year, there are 28 tournaments on the schedule, and they began the last weekend of April and run until the weekend before Halloween.

"A lot of the associations out there are charging better than 100 bucks to play Wiffleball," he said. "In this day and age, you just can't do that. We keep ours simple. Our most expensive tournament is $100, and that's for a fastpitch playoff tournament."

On Saturday, there were two teams from Seymour (the Bombshots and Vick's Liquors), one from the North Vernon/Bedford area (Whatever It Takes), teams from Warsaw and Goshen in Indiana and teams from Owensboro and Louisville in Kentucky.

Wilcher said the game is nothing like the typical backyard Wiffleball game.

The fastpitch field is diamond-shaped, going 95 feet down the line and 100 feet from home plate to center field, while the slowpitch field is triangular-shaped and is 80-feet wide at the fence.

"You have a real hard time in Wiffleball picking up the spin on a ball because there are no seams on a Wiffleball, so it changes the game quite a bit," Greg said.

The winners of Saturday's tournament were guaranteed to walk away with nothing less than $100, so Greg said it pays for teams to participate.

"It's kind of nice to come back and bring the federation back home to where I got my start," said Greg, who played in tournaments before he began the federation. "I still consider Seymour home and always will."

J.R. Wilcher, John's brother, and Tim Lush were among the players Saturday who were called upon to form a team and play. J.R. was on the Whatever It Takes team, and their team name was in support of family friend Morgan Wright of North Vernon.

Wright, who will be a junior at Jennings County High School in the fall, was diagnosed with cancer. J.R. coached Wright for many years and she is his daughter's best friend, and Wright played sports for the Panthers.

The team's T-shirts had "Whatever It Takes" on the front and No. 13 on the back.

"That's the number she wore," J.R. said. "It's an inspiration. She's just a good kid."

It had been nearly 10 years since J.R. had played Wiffleball, and he was glad to see it return to Seymour.

"It's a lot of fun," he said. "We're having a good time. Hopefully it keeps getting bigger and they get more teams."

Lush hadn't played in 10 years, too, and he said it was like being a little kid again. He said he's played the game many times, but this was just his fourth tournament.

"I'm hitting pretty good to be an elder out here," the 33-year-old joked. "It's competitive, but yet it's a lot more about the game than winning or losing."

Of Wiffleball, Lush said, "The swing is totally different. You want a long swing, and the bat is so small and the ball moves so much. It's in a more confined space, and the reaction time is a lot different.
"It's a lot more serious than people think. It's not just backyard Wiffleball. The last time I played, you had your teams back then that were still gung-ho about it and all into it. There's just that select few that really get into it, but for most everybody else, it is more for fun."

Mike McNear played for the Seymour Bombshots, and with his team's success at recent tournaments, they wanted to continue their run.

"We've played in the past three little tournaments they've had over here and we've won the three, so we figured we might as well play something big and see what we can do," McNear said.

In the first three tournaments, McNear said, the team averaged nearly 20 home runs a game, and that's how the team name evolved.

"One of our parents or somebody said, ‘you guys just keep hitting bombs,'" McNear said, "and we were like, ‘no, they are bombshots.'"

They had bright yellow T-shirts made with the team name and logo on the front, so now it's official, he said.

"We get out and have a good time, and it's not real serious," he said. "We play to win, but it's just fun to hang out with the guys and stay out in the sun and play some ball."

Results
Indiana State Championships, Gaiser Park, Seymour, June 27
Top 5 teams: Whatever It Takes (North Vernon/Bedford), Seymour Bombshots (Seymour), Backyard Ballers (Goshen), Diamond Dawgs (Kentucky) and Warsaw Whitecats (Warsaw)
All-State first team: Bailey Sanders (also named tournament MVP), Jacob Ross (outstanding pitcher) and J.R. Wilcher of Whatever It Takes; Chris Jones and Ace Gregory of Seymour Bombshots
All-State second team: Tim Lush of Vick's Liquors

Other tournaments coming to Seymour
July 18, Hoosier Classic; deadline to enter: July 10
Aug. 8, Seymour Invitational; deadline to enter: July 31

Aug. 29, Indiana Region Playoff
Oct. 24, Slowpitch Nationals
To register for tournaments or for information, send an e-mail to greg@nwhbf.net or john@nwhbf.net or call (812) 834-5608.

***EDITOR'S NOTE: It was noted in the print edition of this story that this was the first of four events in Seymour, but it's actually the first of five. That has been corrected in the above story, and the Aug. 29 event has been added to the story and at the end of the story under the headline "Other tournaments coming to Seymour." We apologize for this error.