This Father’s Day weekend, over 40 of the top 18U and 16U club teams from Washington down to Southern California will be gathering in the Sacramento area to compete in the Goodwill Games Showcase/Tournament starting Friday evening and running through Sunday.

Preceding the tournament will be the Elite College Camps that runs from 7:30 am through 4 pm with coaches from two dozen colleges registered to be watching including universities from as far away as Notre Dame and Northwestern.

The tourney’s prize package is certainly one to grab your attention: the winners in each age division will receive $10,000 with $2,500 to each of the runners up for an impressive total of $25K to the top four finishers.

The format of the Goodwill Games Showcase/Tournament includes pool play starting Friday evening with each team to play three pool games into Saturday afternoon when the single elimination format begins.

All games are an hour and 45 minutes and many of the games will go the full 21 outs.

The older age division will compete at the Legacy Sports Complex on the East Complex and younger teams right next to it on the West Complex.

Championship games are scheduled for Sunday at 2:30 pm for the 18U age division and 3 pm for 16U.

Click HERE to follow the schedule and bracket results throughout the weekend on Tourney Machine

The tournament has two fun features for players who make power plays with the bat and for those who make impressive plays in the field with their gloves.

• The Bomb Squad component means that any player who hits a home run over the fence will be awarded a custom Bomb Squad t-shirt and will be posted on the event’s social media sites.
• The Golden Glove Club is similar in that Golden Glove Club shirts will be rewarded to the athletes who make spectacular ESPN Sportscenter-worthy plays defensively,

Umpires will be the ones who make the call on these significant plays and report to site directors who make note of those who will be receiving the well-deserved apparel.

Chris Kappmeyer is the event director for this weekend’s camp and showcase, He owns 1^st to 3^rd Softball Events which hosts tournaments and showcases all over the West for 40 weekends annually and covering the age groups of 10U up through 18U.

His company employs upwards of 30 former current players and coaches with a network of over 100 umpires.

And if that doesn’t keep Chris busy enough, he’s also the head coach of the title-winning Grapettes 18U team along with fellow coach Bryan Merrida.

His 1^st to 3^rd Softball Events company has been tied in with Premier Girls Fastpitch (PGF) for 15 years, which is when he first came on board to be the California State Director for PGF, which is based in Huntington Beach, Calif.

One of the key draws to this weekend’s tourney is the quality complete it’s being played on—the 10-field Legacy Sports Complex in Tracy which opened right after the pandemic and is the largest softball complex in Northern California and one of the newest and largest in the state.

Kappmeyer says the event is growing in popularity as more teams like the significant game play and the simulated game length like they’ll see at PGF.

“We have our eye on this being a top recruiting event on the calendar and it helps that more teams are staying closer to home geographically,” the softball event director and coach says.

“With recruiting being what is, I’m seeing that there is more demand for events like this regionally. This team event is impressive in the caliber of teams competing and we have, in our opinion, a large percentage of the top teams in Northern California especially.”

With the combination of the elite camp, which is worked by many college players off for the summer, and the Goodwill Games, Kappmeyer says this weekend represents what he loves do almost all year round.

“Being able to give back to the softball community, it’s good for them and very rewarding for me. It’s work that’s tiring but I enjoy it and am passionate about it.”

— Brentt Eads/Line Drive Media

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Goodwill Games Showcase/Tournament Competing Teams