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The 41st annual Herald Chronicle Softball Tournament was held over the weekend at the Winchester City Park and at H.V. Griffin Park in Shelbyville with 80 teams in action across five divisions.

The tournament opened on Friday night and continued through Saturday and Sunday with a majority of the contests being held in Winchester while some games were also held in Shelbyville on Saturday to help accommodate the largest field in the event’s lengthy history.

The event, which was run by the Independent Sports Association, raised money for the Franklin County High School girls basketball program.

Steve Lovvorn, the state adult program director for the ISA, said that the 2023 edition of the Chronicle tournament was a major success with little to no issues for the weekend.

“It’s been one of the best Chronicles we’ve ever had,” he said. “We’ve not had a single major issue. We had to maybe redo a bracket or swap a game around or something like that, but it’s gone really smooth.”

Lovvorn also paid tribute to the work of the umpires for the tournament and the Winchester Parks and Recreation Department for keeping everything running effectively.

The expansion of the Chronicle tournament into Shelbyville was a first for the event with Lovvorn noting that it was primarily done to allow more teams to compete in the Chronicle as interest has continued to grow after 72 teams signed up to play at the 2022 edition.

“We outgrew the five fields in Winchester. We outgrew it last year. This year, we had a lot of interest in it so I talked to (Winchester Recreation Director) Darrell Jolley, and I told him that the only way we can have more teams is to have more fields,” he said. “We sent the rec, the E-class and the lower ladies, played some games over there, and all they played over there was the opening round and the winner’s bracket. Everybody eventually came to Winchester.”

The money raised from the event will benefit the FCHS girls basketball team by helping to buy uniforms, equipment and meals for camps and away games during the upcoming 2023-24 school year. In addition to each team paying an entry fee to compete in the tournament, players, coaches and parents for the girls basketball program also ran multiple concession stands at the Winchester City Park to raise additional money.

The first of the five brackets to finish up was the upper ladies bracket on Saturday night with Lady MTS/Smoke completing an undefeated tournament run by beating TriStar 17-7 in the championship game.

The lower ladies bracket would end a few hours later with Bad Pitches topping the Coffee County Cyclones by a 16-6 margin in the championship game to also go unbeaten for the weekend.

The championship action resumed on Sunday afternoon with the Tennessee Valley Tribe, a D-class team, and True Fit Trim, a C-class squad, facing off in the finals of the D/C Combo bracket.

True Fit Trim avenged a loss to the Tennessee Valley Tribe earlier in the day by picking up a 13-12 win in the first game of the championship round to force a winner-take-all contest. However, the Tennessee Valley Tribe rebounded for an 18-15 victory in the decisive game to take the tournament title.

The next champion crowned would be Free Kutz in the recreational bracket as the team ended an undefeated run for the weekend with a 19-14 win over Twin Cedars in the title game

The final bracket to end would be for the E-class division as Better Than Nothing emerged from the bottom bracket to beat Last Call by a score of 17-13 to start the championship round. Last Call recovered quickly, however, and topped Better Than Nothing by a score of 12-2 in a winner-take-all matchup immediately afterward to take the top spot.