Don Ketchum
Former Staff Writer, AZPreps365.com

Baseball tourney honors memory of late coach

March 13, 2011 by Don Ketchum, AZPreps365


Baseball continues to heat up this week with two Valley tournaments.
Biggest is the 58-team Coach Bob Invitational at several sites in the northwest Valley. It begins Monday and is spread out over the course of a few weeks, to March 25.
The tournament, hosted by Anthem Boulder Creek, is named in honor of longtime Valley baseball coach Bob Weinheimer, who passed away on March 4 at the age of 90. Weinheimer, a former assistant at Chandler High and Boulder Creek, was inducted into the Arizona High School Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.
Boulder Creek is one of the host sites. Others are Chandler, Phoenix Barry Goldwater, Phoenix Sandra Day O’Connor, Glendale Apollo, Goodyear Desert Edge, Chandler, Tolleson and Surprise Willow Canyon.
There are three divisions – National, American and Open. Chandler won the National Division last year and Goldwater the American.
Participating teams from Arizona are Boulder Creek, Apollo, Chandler, Flagstaff Coconino, Desert Edge, Goldwater, Sandra Day O’Connor, Page, Prescott, Tolleson and Willow Canyon.
Colorado teams – Air Academy, Central, Chaparral, Dakota Ridge, Elizabeth, Fairview, Golden, Grand Junction, Green Mountain, Heritage, Highlands Ranch, Lewis Palmer, Mountain Vista, Palmer Ridge, Pine Creek, Ponderosa, Pueblo County, Pueblo West, Rampart, Rocky Mountain, Silver Creek, Thunder Ridge and Wheat Ridge.
Oregon teams – Churchill, Crescent Valley, Horizon Christian, Lake Oswego, Lebanon, Lincoln, Sheldon, Sunset, Thurston, West Albany, West Linn, West Salem, Westview and Willamette.
Other teams – Bentonville (Ark.), Brighton (Utah), Farmington (N.M.), Houston Christian (Texas), Juneau Douglas (Alaska), Montgomery Bell (Tenn.), Northland Christian (Texas), Piedra Vista (N.M.) and Tulsa Memorial (Okla.).
For more information, go to coachbobinvitational.com.
The Best of the West Tournament began Saturday (March 12) and continues through Wednesday (March 16), with semifinals and championship at Peoria Sunrise Mountain at 9 a.m., 12 noon and 3 p.m. There are 16 teams, including one from Colorado and four from Oklahoma.
Other tourney sites are Peoria Centennial, Glendale Mountain Ridge and Glendale Deer Valley.