JACKSONVILLE – After seeing the tragic events unfold Feb 14 at Stoneman Douglas, Trinity Christian baseball coach Gil Morales wanted to do something special for Douglas.
He did by reorganizing his 11th Annual Tournament of Champions Baseball tournament into a fundraiser for the Douglas program.
On Valentines Day, Nikolas Cruz entered Stoneman Douglas with a AR15 and shot and killed 17, while critically injuring 14 more in the deadliest mass school shooting in United States history.
Students returned to school Feb 26 as did the baseball team, who pulled out of the Flanagan tournament Feb 20-23 as the community dealt with the tragic loss of coaches and students.
With Douglas having already previously committed to play in the week long tournament, Morales quickly changed the format and put together a tripleheader on Friday at the Baseball Grounds with Nease, Bolles, Trinity, University Christian, Orlando TNXL Academy and Stoneman Douglas.
In the previous ten years of the tournament, Morales would bring in state champions or state runner-ups from the previous year to compete with area state powers like Bolles, Providence, Eagle’s View, Clay, Ponte Vedra and Trinity, in a two-day eight-team tournament at JU, UNF and the Baseball Grounds. However, after the tragic incident at Douglas he decided to change the format into a showcase and honor the Douglas program and community.
All proceeds from the ticket sales on March 9 will be donated to Stoneman Douglas High School, to assist with travel expenses for the team and to support the Stoneman Douglas Victims’ Fund.
The movement to turn the competition into a show of support was started and led by the Trinity baseball program, which quickly garnered the support of the entire Trinity community.
Though the tournament schedule had been set for months, when the team saw they would be playing Stoneman Douglas, they rallied the Trinity leadership, student council, band and color guard, which had recently competed against Stoneman Douglas at the state championships.
In addition to donating proceeds to Stoneman Douglas, all players in the tournament will wear Stoneman Douglas hats, and students from Trinity will be writing letters and signing banners to send home with Stoneman Douglas players.
Fans of all teams are encouraged to wear maroon and silver – the Stoneman Douglas school colors – to show support for the students and families
The annual tournament is named after Ben Watkins, a former Trinity player who passed away from cancer in 2003 at the age of 28. Watkins played both football and baseball at Trinity before finishing his career as a pitcher at UNF.
The week long tournament starts today with University Christian traveling to Nease and continues Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
2018 Ben Watkins Tournament of Champions
Tuesday, March 6
Game 1: University Christian at Nease, 7
Thursday, March 8
Game 2: Bolles at Nease, 7
Friday, March 9 (at Baseball Grounds)
Game 3: Nease vs Trinity, 11 a.m.
Game 4: University Christian vs Bolles, 2
Game 5: TNXL vs Stoneman Douglas, 5
Saturday, March 10
Game 6: Stoneman Douglas at Bolles, 2
Game 7: University Christian vs TNXL (at Trinity), 11 a.m.
Game 8: Stoneman Douglas at Trinity, 7
