More than a tournament, Fire in the Sky creates lifelong memories
Each team plays three pool games before entering a single-elimination championship bracket, culminating in the title game just before Orrville’s annual fireworks.
It took a little more than two decades, but the Fire in the Sky 14-and-under softball tournament may have peaked. It actually may not be able to get any better.
The biggest single-age-group youth softball tournament in the country was completely sold out well before its July 2-5 running dates. All told, 116 teams will play in the area and be whittled down to the last two standing for the Saturday night championship game, which will be played just before the annual Fourth of July fireworks that mark the end of a weeklong celebration.
“It’s the largest one we’ve ever had,” said Orrville Fire Chief Chris Bishop, whose department oversees field maintenance throughout the event. “We still had teams trying to get in this week. We had to stop.”
Each team will play three pool-play games, after which all 116 will be seeded and placed into a single-elimination championship bracket.
The Batbusters out of the Northern Detroit suburb of Warren, Michigan will try to become the first team to defend a Fire in the Sky championship successfully. Last year the Batbusters, after a first-round bye, steamrolled five opponents on the championship day by a combined score of 48-15 including a 10-3 win over the Ohio Wolfpack in the title game.
The Batbusters last year finished 85-12-4. They took a 34-7-4 record into the Fire in the Sky, looking to play another large handful of games before heading back north.
“They were something,” Tournament Director Paige Summers said. “They’ll hit a couple home runs every game. I think it’s all about getting hot at the right time. The bats are clicking, the pitchers are having their game and you can’t make an error — a little bit of luck, a little bit of skill, everything clicking at the right time. We’ve seen some teams that weren’t supposed to win get hot at the right time.”
The Batbusters came to town last year as a 13U team and won. Now they’ll look to pull an improbable double.
“It’s unusual,” Bishop said. “This will be the first time it could be back-to-back. This is our 21st year. Usually, kids are 14 when they win.”
The tourney has grown into a monster over those 21 years (it was not held in 2020 because of COVID). It is preceded by a 12U tournament, the 5-Alarm Classic, which is limited to just 44 teams and held entirely in Orrville.
The Fire in the Sky is played in Orrville, Rittman and Smithville and has teams from at least 10 states attending and staying, from the Belden Village area in Stark County to Wadsworth in Medina County.
“All these teams, these travel teams, hotels and restaurants, Ashland University did an economic survey for us a couple years ago,” Bishop said. “It’s like $8 million that comes in those couple days that’s being spent in the area. It’s quite an undertaking.”
And it becomes a lifetime memory for participants. Summers knows, having been part of a championship team during her playing days.
“It’s a tournament like no others around,” she said. “Just to see the excitement and people walking around. They’re just happy. Sometimes, everyone gets caught up in the wins, the losses, the batting averages. In this tournament all that just goes away. Everyone just has fun. Softball is supposed to be fun. This tournament just sort of encapsulates that.”
Bishop tells the story of a fan who bought a T-shirt and mistakenly tried to pay for it with Euros. Turns out she was from Belgium, and her daughter was playing with a team in the U.S. because she couldn’t get the kind of training she needed in her home nation.
The fire chief’s stories are endless, and he’ll probably have a few more added this year.
“That’s how crazy it is,” he said. “We’ve had parents and stuff come up whose daughters have played in the College World Series, and they say, ‘Our daughter has played in this tournament.’ Their fondest memory was playing the Fire in the Sky, even better than College World Series. That’s really awesome.”
As for growing the tournament, Bishop said that would be great but might be difficult to pull off. There are only so many fields close to Orrville, there is only so much time to schedule games without stretching it extra days and there are only so many hands on deck in the fire department to redo the fields after every game, one of the tournament's hallmarks.
“We’re running 12 fields right now, and because of our manpower situation, more might be tough to do,” Bishop said. “People want to play in this. We’ve still been getting calls here. We advertise this thing starting in like the first of September. The kids who played are leaving, but there are new kids coming in.
“That’s why we do that 12U the weekend before. The kids see the carnival is getting set up the whole time the 12U is playing, and they want to come back. A lot of the teams we get are repeats from the 12U. Usually by January, it’s pretty much full, and we’re starting a waiting list. I don’t know why some of these teams are waiting so long.”
Summers has an idea — because it’s worth the wait, and one never knows when a spot will open up and a team can sneak in. The tournament might not be growing, but the sport is, and all those teams need somewhere to play.
“Softball continues to grow,” Summers said. “Whether you see it on TV or you’re just there to watch the fireworks and it’s just sort of your yearly thing, people love it. It’s an atmosphere like no other.”