MOSES LAKE – The Summer Sizzle softball tournament will return to Moses Lake this weekend, giving teams a chance at a final tournament during summer ball.

“It’s the off-season, pretty much everybody has done their state tournaments, their national tournaments, so what we try to do is put on a little fun tournament to put a cap on the whole (summer),” Tournament Director Willie Holmes said.

Holmes said that most of the teams that participate in off-season tournaments are travel teams, who are taking a look at their rosters for the next season.

“Also, it gives coaches on the travel teams a chance to try out new players and get an idea what they’re going to have for the coming season,” Holmes said. “Not everybody has the tendency to play softball and practice year-round now.”

To help coaches with this examination process, the Summer Sizzle features alternated rules allowing more players to enter the game.

“It's more about let’s play everybody (on the team,)” Holmes said. “And we kind of loosen up the rules a little bit. You can go ahead and bat your whole lineup if you’d like – if you’ve got 15 players and you want to bat them all, you can.”

While none of the teams participating are from the Basin, Holmes said that the incoming teams will be coming in from Wenatchee, Spokane and Idaho.

“Only five this year, it goes up and down,” Holmes said. “We’ve had as many as 13 or 14 teams. This year they’re all 12 and under teams. In past years the 14 and under has been our largest participant, but they’re all 12’s this year.”

Holmes believes that school beginning has had an effect on the participation, especially that of the older teams.

“I think school starting has a lot to do with it, because with the older girls they’re playing soccer and other sports, getting back in the routine of going back to school.”

Over the past years, possibly due to pandemic-related causes, turnout to late-summer tournaments has been down, according to Holmes.

“I’ve been to tournaments with 20 or 30 teams this time of year,” Holmes said. “But in the last few years, it seems to be down.”

Holmes said that this is the fourth year that the Summer Sizzle has been played, with himself being at the head of it each year.

“I had kids of my own that played ball, and just giving the kids something extra to do,” Holmes said of how the tournament began. “For me, and my girls, we didn’t do anything this time of the year. So it was like, let’s put something on for the kids who are not playing soccer or whatever – especially for the younger kids.”

The Summer Sizzle isn’t the only late-summer tournament in Eastern Washington, with other being held later into September in surrounding areas.

“Some kids will go play our tournament, and then they’ll play the Selah tournament and maybe the tournament in Tri-Cities,” Holmes said.

The tournament begins on Saturday and runs through the weekend at Larson Playfields.

Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.