139th News

139th Airlift Wing brings home women’s softball championship to Missouri

  • Published
  • By Jennifer Archdekin
  • MONG
Missouri's 139th Airlift Wing walked away as champions at the 45th Annual Air National Guard National Softball Championship for the women's division. The tournament, Aug. 11-15, was held in Panama City, Fla.

The Missouri team beat out New Jersey, 12-11, in the championship game. They also faced teams from Arkansas, Ohio and New Jersey.

In the first round, the Missouri crew beat Arkansas National Guard, 13-3.

In the second game, Missouri faced the Ohio National Guard seeing 11 innings. Missouri won, 7-6, on a walk off, inside the park home run, hit by Heather Mitchell, with no outs.

In the qualification round New Jersey National Guard fell to Missouri, 17-15.

Ultimately, Missouri prevailed rounding out the tournament beating New Jersey again, 12-11. A couple of key defensive plays that kept it close. Denise Paden made a stop at home with two outs and the bases loaded to end the inning. The real play of the game came when New Jersey was up to bat, with two outs and a runner on first. N.J. hit a rope out to right field, where Kim Moore fielded the ball, threw it to Tonya Douglas who was playing second base. Douglas caught the ball, threw it to Tiffany Beckett who fielded the ball, dropped down and blocked the bag where the N.J. runner was sliding in, essentially denying her the base and getting her out as well.

This Missouri women's team won the championship three years ago in San Jose, Calif., and have finished within the top three teams in the last six years.

For more information about the Missouri National Guard, please call 1-800-GoGuard or visit www.moguard.com.


For more information about this release, please contact Jennifer Archdekin at 816-262-2893 or e-mail at jarchdekin@gmail.com.