23rd Annual Russia Alumni Tournament

Raider alums that survive three days of softball earn bragging rights for a year

Russia's co-ed alumni softball tournament is coming up August 11th-13th. The annual event has always been the biggest fundraiser of the year for the Russia Park Board, which uses proceeds for improvements and maintenance to Russia Community Park. Individual and combined classes of Raider alumni (and sometimes a wide variety of non-Russia teammates) will open the tournament on Friday with 20 teams. Those 20 will be separated into five pools of four teams. Each team will then play the other teams in their pool, guaranteeing three games for everyone. After the pool play is over, the top two teams from each pool will advance to a single elimination tournament. To earn Sunday's championship title, #1-seeded teams will need to win three games in the bracket and #2-seeded teams will have to win four. If all that sounds confusing, you can read the entire list of rules by clicking here.  

 

After the bottom ten teams are eliminated, the top ten are seeded to battle it out

Here's a few statistics about the history of the event:

• 
  The Russia Park Board hosted their first alumni tournament in 2000.
• The only year it wasn't completed was 2016 when rained forced a cancellation. 
• 2023 marks the 23rd year for the tournament. 
• A total of 16 different classes or combination of classes have won the 22 championships. 
• Despite classes that merge together for a bigger roster of players, combined classes have won just eight of the 22 titles and were runner-up just four times. 
• Only once has a class won the championship the same year they graduated and that was 2008. 

Lastly, like every year since 2000, there's no doubt many ultra competitive alumni will suffer pulled muscles and bloody knees, all for a shot at championship t-shirts and free case of beer. However, most will simply show up for the camaraderie. You can bet that former high school teammates will embellish about their glory days, old classmates will catch up together on life, and a couple generations of parents and grandparents will just enjoy watching their kids and grandkids compete like they once did for Russia High School. Play ball Raiders.

Class of 2018 - Last year's champs with their winning swag

Class of 2013 - Runner-up and smiling just as big