Sunday, 14 May was opening day for this year’s Softball Ulster league, with three Division B games beginning at the same time in three different cities across the region – Belfast, Newtownabbey, and Bangor.

The league’s newest team, the Newtownabbey Phoenix, hosted the Lisburn Hawks at V36 Valley Park for the Phoenix’s first league match and first home match.

The Belfast Sliders and Bangor Buccaneers played the first Division A game of the season at the Sliders’ home ground at Hydebank Park on Monday evening, while the Belfast Cubs hosted the Brawlers at Strandtown on Wednesday, their new home game night.

Each team will continue league play until 28 August as they play their ten scheduled league matches. The next scheduled SU Blitz is the Carrie Trundle Cup, which will be on Saturday, 3 June at Hydebank Playing Fields.

The treasurer position on the Softball Ulster council has become vacant, and SU is looking for volunteers willing to nominate themselves to fill the role.

If you’re interested, read the attached role description and email secretary@softballulster.com to express your interest in the role. Speak to a member of the council if you have any questions.

Softball Ulster team captains held their preseason captain’s meeting this week to review and agree to changes to the league bylaws for the upcoming season. The bylaws are available to read on the SU website.

Here are the main changes to the bylaws for the 2023 season:

• The run-ahead rule is now compulsory in all league games. This means that teams can no longer decline the application of the rule. If a team leads by 20 runs after four innings, or by 15 runs after five or more innings, the game will end and the final score will be recorded as it stands at that point. Teams may agree to continue the game as a friendly, but the final score will not change from the officially-recorded result at the time the run-ahead rule was applied.
• The only balls permitted for use in league games are 52/300 softballs. The use of 44/375 11″ softballs has been removed from the bylaws.
• Teams are not allowed to use rope to mark the boundary of the field.
• At the end of the season, the first-place team in Division B will play the last-place team in Division A in a single game. The winner of this game will play in Division A in the following season, and the loser of the game will play in Division B.
• Division B teams are not permitted to borrow players from Division A teams.

The bylaws also confirm that the league will be split into divisions of six teams each for the 2023 season. Each team will play a home and away game against every other team in their division. No league matches between teams from different divisions have been scheduled this season.

Every change to the bylaws for the upcoming season is marked in the document with a note that says [Updated 2023].

Softball Ulster hosted 12 teams for the Start of Season Blitz on April 23 at Hydebank Playing Fields. The tournament began with a morning round-robin session in groups, followed by afternoon games for final placement BSC2, one of Belfast Softball Club’s entries, won the blitz by beating another of the club’s entries, BSC1, with a score of 14-11 in the first-place game. The tournament’s women’s and men’s MVPs were Lauren from the Belfast Sliders and Kleiver from the Bangor Buccanneers, respectively.

The final standings for the blitz were as follows:

Place	Team
1	BSC2 (Belfast Softball Club)
2	BSC1 (Belfast Softball Club)
3	Belfast Cubs
4	Average Joes (Softball Leinster)
5	Belfast Sliders
6	BSC3 (Belfast Softball Club)
7	Lisburn Hawks (Lisburn Softball Club)
8	Bangor Buccanneers (North Down Softball Club)
9	Belfast Angels
10	Newtownabbey Phoenix
11	Bangor Barracudas (North Down Softball Club)
12	Lisburn Eagles (Lisburn Softball Club)

During the blitz, the Newtownabbey Phoenix, Softball Ulster’s newest team, played their first competitive matches and earned their first win as a club. Additionally, the Softball Leinster team Average Joes traveled from Dublin to participate in the blitz.