SOFTBALL: ANNUAL RIVER CITY RUMBLE BEGINS TOD

Now in its 14th year, the annual River City Rumble softball tournament has fast become one of the premier events in Arkansas. The tournament, which begins today and runs through Saturday at the Field of Dreams complex, fields not only strong teams, but Van Buren coach Andy Williams said those teams are felt welcomed. "I think it has (become a premier tournament), from all indications, at least the feedback I get is that people love coming to it," Williams said. "They love the way they're treated by our fans and by the community as far as hotels and restaurants and what not. "We also do what we have to do to get the field ready before each game, getting them re-chalked and re-dragged for every single game and that's 40 games we're talking about. They're getting a fresh field the whole time." Williams added there are a couple of other reasons he's looking forward to the latest edition of the RCR. "The first thing is I think we are going to have good weather between now and then. ... I think this is the second time in my 11 years that I've been here that we just basically showed up and played ball on Friday night, we're not going to need to spend Thursday night and all day Friday getting the fields prepared, so that's the first positive," Williams said. "The second positive is we've got 15 other teams coming to town and there will be a lot of ball. Usually, there are three or four state champions that come out of this tournament between 7A and 1A. ... I think one year we had five state champions coming out of our tournament, so it's a great barometer to see where you're at against good competition and play against good competition at all levels from 1A to 7A." There will be two separate eight-team brackets in today's portion of the RCR. The first bracket features Bentonville, Mena, Alma, Atkins, Sheridan, Russellville, Rogers and Scranton, with play starting at 3:30 p.m. Then the second bracket features Benton, Springdale Har-Ber, Greenwood, Bentonville West, Van Buren, Brookland, White Hall and Dardanelle, with action starting at 5 p.m. "Sheridan's always a top team in 6A, and Benton and Sheridan played each other for the 6A championship last season and they're both returning," Williams said. "I'm also interested in watching Bentonville West, I've never seen them play; we were supposed to play them two weeks ago but it got canceled because of cold weather. ... Of course, you've still got the locals like Greenwood and Alma and we've got Bentonville and Rogers coming down, so we've got a few local teams and some northwest Arkansas teams coming down." After today's games, action shifts into two separate elimination brackets, called the Green and White brackets. Those games start at 1 p.m. Saturday, with the semifinals to begin at 4 p.m., followed by the championship games at 5:30 p.m.

SOFTBALL: ANNUAL RIVER CITY RUMBLE BEGINS TOD

Photo Credit: Van Buren High School Athletics