It’s hard enough to get focused and go into a tournament just looking to beat your opposition… and usually that “opposition” is the opposing team’s players and coaches.

But what if that opposition is a potentially deadly disaster that shuts down schools and cities?

How do you deal with that?

That’s what teams competing in the Memorial Day Classic RINGS TOURNAMENT – Sponsored by Bownet had to deal with Memorial Day weekend (May 23-25, 2026).

In case you were busy that week and didn’t catch the national news, there was a huge and scary incident in Garden Grove, Calif. in the Orange County area where the terrifying threat of a 7,000-gallon tank at GKN Aerospace possibly leaking or—worst case scenario—exploding, forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.

It all started on Thursday afternoon May 21, 2026—just hours before the Memorial Day Classic was set to begin.

At one point, the threat forced as many as 55,000-to-60,000 people in Garden Grove–which has 170,000 residents—and others from surrounding areas to leave their homes until the threat was no longer a concern.

Fortunately, the scary cracked tank emergency was handled well by Orange County Fire Department working in tandem with the Environmental Protection Agency but it could have been horrific: one spokesman for GKN said that the refrigeration system could have overheated with a “boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion” (BLEVE) that “would have been a catastrophe.”

Fortunately, the potentially deadly incident ending up passing harmlessly to the great people who literally “put out the fire,” but here’s where the softball side of it comes in.

Pacifica High has traditionally produced one of the top softball teams in the nation and the school’s history is rife with success, including winning a mythical national championship in 1997, four State Team of the Year honors and nine CIF Southern Section titles (the CIF-SS could arguably have the best talent of any geographical area in the country).

The Mariners’ program has seen legendary coaches like Rob Weil, Mark Campbell and Tony Arduino—the current head coach—keep the teams humming with great success over the last 35 years and the talent that’s come out of the school includes Amanda Freed, the UCLA All-America pitcher as well as Brittany Weil (Iowa), Nicole DeWitt (Florida), Kaylee Carlson (North Carolina) as well as current UCLA players Kaniya Bragg and Brynne Nally.

So what does that have to do with the Memorial Day Classic RINGS TOURNAMENT?

Only that two young, but highly talented teams in Orange County—the Wildcats Premier Laukat 14U squad and the OC Batbuster Legacy 12U – Arduino team—who are based of Pacific High, couldn’t practice or prepare.

They basically, if you will, had to show up and play without much of a chance to work together… a big handicap, right?

Well… not exactly.

The Batbuster squad led by Tony Arduino, Pacifica High’s head coach, and the older Wildcats Premier 14U team coached by Neil Laukat, both ended up winning their respective divisions—without practicing—while dealing with the scary situation in their backyard.

As Coach Laukat noted, there was perhaps a little more emotion going for the two teams based in the epicenter of what was happening with the local aerospace company:

“Both teams were battling it out for their team and home city.”

Practice or not, both the Batbusters and Wildcats teams had to battle against dozens of top teams across the West in their respective age divisions, 10U up through 16U.

And how did the Pacifica products do?

The Batbusters 12U team went 6-0 in large part due to great pitching which saw Coach Arduino’s team pitch four shutouts and give up just three runs overall in the half dozen victories including the title win 3-1 over Breakers Labs Gregg.

For the Wildcats, they also had a 6-0 record with the team’s pitching being similarly strong, giving up seven total runs in their run to the title, capped with a 3-1 win over Explosion Kim 2030/James

Not the most relaxed event perhaps, but both coaches stressed proud they were of how their players and families held up.

“It was a tough weekend for some of our families with news of evacuations and schools being closed,” Coach Tony Arduino said, “but they stayed focused on the task at hand and competed all weekend.”  

Parent Sean Haynes, the Wildcat dad of Addison Haynes, was one of those who had to evacuate his family. He said what made it doable was how the team was able to rally around each other.

“We were not fazed by the sudden evacuation of our home,” he explained, “and, thanks to the huge support of our Wildcat family, the team pulled off an incredible win. After winning the championship, we got word we could return home about 7:30 pm (Sunday, May 25) and we were so grateful and thankful for our softball family!”

Still, it had to be a disruptive week and softball must have been an unpleasant distraction to what was happening in the community, yes?

Not quite.

Coach Laukat says getting to play on the field was the soothing balm the team needed to find peace in the midst of a trying few days.

“It was a great weekend for our team and our org,” the Wildcats head man began.

“We have a few players who were in evacuation areas away from their homes the last couple days, and to be able to give these kids some normalcy, play softball and win for them and our home city was one of the best parts of the weekend.”

“Coach Arduino and I coach together at Pacifica and are great friends; we do a lot of the same things with our teams and players to be successful, and I’m not surprised we both were there at the end winning the championship.”

“It’s one of the things I’ll always remember about the Garden Grove crisis and what we were able to do for our city.”

— Brentt Eads/Line Drive Media