Formed over two decades ago, the Great Western Shootout has become the premier non-conference community college softball tournament in the nation. The concept for the tournament was formed in the early 1980’s at a time when competition between California and Arizona community college softball programs was extremely one-sided in favor of the teams in the Golden State. Looking for a way to give the Arizona schools a more competitive taste of top-level softball while staying home (instead of being dominated at California tournaments), former AWC Head Softball Coach Charlie Dine and then-Central Arizona Head Softball Coach Mike Candrea (who would go on to lead the University of Arizona to 7 NCAA Championships) formed the Great Western Shootout.
It was first held at Yuma’s Joe Henry Park and Sanguinetti Field, and pitted nearly 20 teams from the two states against each other. However, when community college budgets in California started having to cut costs, many California schools begrudgingly began withdrawing from the tournament, which allowed organizers to expand the scope of the tournament by inviting schools from such states as Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Oregon and Texas.
Within the last 10-15 years, venues such as the Cibola High School and Yuma Catholic High School fields became the host fields, but because of the increasing size of the tournament field, Joe Henry has begun to host some games again. Plus, the level of competition has reached an all-time high, with nationally ranked teams from Kansas and Florida joining the mix.
The 2009 Great Western Shootout will host nearly a dozen teams from three different time zones-many of whom were nationally ranked at the end of last season, and one that is a defending national champion. That list includes your own Lady Matadors, who will play 8 games themselves as part of the three-day event.
