The Virginia Vipers Softball Club for Veterans had another great season in 2017. The organization sponsored one spring open team, one summer open team, two Senior teams and two fall Seniors team and a fall open team.
Another great spring for the Five Sided Vipers with a 14-5-1 record winning the Tuesday D3 division outright. The team was led by Wes Poyner and Chip Campbell with super home run prowess. Matt Benoit, LCF played the entire season with a bum elbow but was routinely a clutch player for the Five Sided Squad. The season came down to the very last week as the Red Horseman mustered a 12-8 record and were in a position to take first place but couldn’t pull of the needed victories to overcome the one tie the Vipers suffered.
Beset by the injury bug, the Long Fanged Vipers had a tough summer season. After great beginnings in 2016, finishing 2nd in the league tournament, the Vipers were moved to D1 and simply couldn’t handle the competition. They finished with an extremely poor 6-12 record and decided not to play the final double header by mutual agreement. Going into the playoffs, they were seeded last in the D1 category and were quickly eliminated. As always, Bob Barnes had a super season and Milan Piech made a comeback near the end of the year but too little, too late.
The 2017 Vintage Vipers moved up from Division 4 to Division 3 and went 17 – 3 for the second consecutive season. In the Vintage Vipers’ two year existence they have gone 34 – 6 in the regular season and 38 – 8 including the end of season tournaments which they swept 3 – 0 in 2016. Looks like 2018 may be the year that the Vintage Vipers move up to Division 2!!!
This 2017 Vintage Viper team was “revamped” from the 2016 team. The 2017 Vintage Vipers added Marty Chavers and Mike Carlozzi who came down from the Long Fanged Vipers (LFV). The 2017 Vintage Vipers added long time Vipers, Doug Grubbs and Eric Eifler to the roster and“shared” players from the LFV which contributed to the success of these teams (2016 & 2017).
With the concept (Gino Yannotti) of “shared” players that was implemented in 2016 and with the core Vintage Vipers team coming back in 2018, the Vintage Vipers look forward to the multitude of challenges in 2018.