The second annual Candy Swetkis SISU Strikefest will be held this Saturday at the Lemerand Softball Field Complex. Tournament organizers encourage the community to come out to cheer on the teams and watch some outstanding fastpitch softball.

This year’s tournament has eight teams entered including three teams from downstate: Freeland, Millington and last year’s Swetkis Strikefest Champion Three Rivers. The remaining five teams include Escanaba Varsity and Junior Varsity, Houghton, Hancock and Norway.

In addition to offering high quality softball games, the tournament also serves as a fundraiser for both the Escanaba Girls Softball program as well as the Candy Swetkis Memorial Endowment. All proceeds from the tournament – which include 50/50 drawings every game, bucket raffles, concession stand and gate receipts – will be split equally between the girls’ softball program and the Swetkis endowment.

Candy Swetkis is widely known as a softball legend with a fastpitch and slowpitch career that spanned 57 years. She has been inducted into both the UP Sports Hall of Fame as well as the USA Softball of Michigan Hall of Fame. Swetkis, an earth sciences teacher at Escanaba middle school for 27 years, died in 2022 and played softball until age 75. Before she died, she asked that a scholarship be awarded in her name to a graduating Escanaba senior who intended to enter the teaching profession. The Swetkis Memorial Endowment was created to do that, and two $2,000 scholarships have been awarded to date. Candy’s endowment has also built three bullpens at the tournament ballfield.

The tournament begins at 9 a.m. Saturday with games on all three fields. Lesley (Noel) Delvaux, a 2004 graduate of Escanaba High School and standout high school and college pitcher, will throw out the first pitch. Delvaux will be inducted into the Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame later that same day. Gate admissions will be charged for the tournament. Cost for adults is $5 and seniors $3. All school-aged youth 17 years and under will be free. The Championship game is slated to begin at 3 p.m.

New to the tournament this year will be the SISU All-Tournament Team. According to tournament organizers, Swetkis was extremely proud of her Finnish heritage and exhibited SISU, a Finnish word that translates roughly to “inner strength, courage, determination and grit.” It also describes a spirit of resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity. After every game, each team will select a player from the opposing team that best exhibited SISU during that game. At the end of the day, all players who have been selected as SISU players will appear together on center field to make up the SISU All-Tournament Team.