On Sunday evening, the championship game of the annual World Wiffleball Classic was held on the Portage High School football turf for the first time ever. Teams for the tournament, which took place on the turf all weekend long, were made up of two to three students per squad.
The final game of the fifth annual WWC featured a matchup between El Salvador and Poland. El Salvador came out on top in an 11-1 rout. All of the runs scored in the game were on home runs. The championship team was comprised of a pair of Portage baseball players, seniors Tony Cheky and Nate Ramien. Brandon Coppinger, Allen Barrett and event founder Christian Cherry made up the second place Poland squad.
Ramien started the scoring with a two-run homer in the top of the second, before he and Cheky both launched two-run bombs in the fourth. El Salvador broke the game wide open with a five run fourth inning. Barrett accounted for the only Poland tally with a solo blast in the third.
The World Wiffleball Classic started in 2007 when several current seniors, who were in eighth grade at the time, came up with the idea. President Christian Cherry founded the event, while vice president Nathan Johnston was the co-founder.
“We had been playing wiffleball in the back yard with each other and we just wanted to get a big tournament for everybody and just have some fun. We explained the idea to (Portage athletic director Jeff Smith) and he loved it,” Cherry said.
The first year the World Wiffleball Classic was held at Willowcreek Middle School. Since then, it has moved around and eventually found its way to the football turf. Smith promised the boys when they were in ninth grade that he would let them hold the game on the PHS football field their senior year with the championship game taking place under the lights. Every year the tournament has continued to grow.
In all, there were 40 teams and 106 participants in the tournament. Each team selected a unique country name. Pool play took place all day on Saturday (56 total games) and the elimination style bracket was played out on Sunday. The first pitch of the championship game occurred at 8pm under the lights.
“This year’s tournament has gone great. We have some good teams so it’s pretty evenly matched out here,” Cherry said.
Despite the graduation of many of the students that run the event, the World Wiffleball Classic is expected to return again in 2012. Cherry has put together a thorough website that provides information about the World Wiffleball Classic and its history, click here to visit that site!