Lae ready for s’ball club titles

By HENRY MORABANG
LAE Softball Association is geared up to host the 2012 Inter Oil national club championships this weekend.
The organising committee, headed by former national vice-president Francis Nambon and his deputy John Keleu has been working to ensure the four-day (Sept 14-17) tournament runs smoothy over the long Independence weekend.
PNG Softball Federation vice-president Ralph Tarasomo said Lae had waited nine years to host the club titles and he was positive the softball fraternity would get behind the local association to make it a memorable event.
Tarasomo said the official opening would be on Saturday but pool matches would start on Friday.
Tarasomo also commended the clubs for making an effort to take part in this year’s championships.
The 2012 softball club championships teams are PNG Power, Bears, Gazelle, United Brothers (Port Moresby), Karanas, Manalos, Marlins, Fireballs (Lae), Karanas (Tabubil), New Guinea Islands, Gazelle (Mt Hagen), V3 Dogs (Ramu), 09ERS, NT Tigers (Madang) for the men.
Women: United Sisters, Bears, Stingerz (Port Moresby), Manalos, Stormers, Karanas (Lae), Karanas (Tabubil), United, 89ERS (Ramu), NGI (Mt Hagen).
Tarasomo also announced the break down of prizemoney for the championships.
From a total prize pool of K32,000 the men’s and women’s winners would pocket K7,000  each while the respective runners-up would get K5,000 each.
The third place finishers K3,000 and the fourth-placed teams would walk away with a consolation K1,000 each.
The balance of the money would go towards administration and logistics costs.
Tarasomo said the players’ ability and skills would be something that the federation would be looking to assess to start development of representative players for the 2015 Pacific Games in Port Moresby. 
He added that PNGSF had requested presidents and/or executives of affiliated associations to attend the annual meeting to be held on Saturday to discuss the federation’s corporate and strategic plans.
He concluded with a invitation to fans and supporters from Madang, Ramu, Goroka and Mt Hagen, to come to Lae and support the “family game”.