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The Sanilac County Softball Tournament, now in its 24th year, will take place at Brown City High School this Saturday with semifinal games between CPS/Marlette and Brown City/Sandusky before the title game at 2 p.m.

While the host Lady Devils (8-4) will have their hands full with Sandusky (6-1), Marlette (7-5) might be a slight favorite to win its seventh County title. Both the Lady Raiders and Sandusky have won six championships over the previous 23 years. No one else has more than three such crowns and CPS has none.

It is that team without a trophy that worries Harold Titus, veteran Marlette coach.

"We certainly would not want to look past CPS even though we've beaten them twice," warned Titus. The Lady Tigers (6-7), coached by Bill Sarkella, have two wins over Deckerville and a split with Sandusky, and they proved they could score runs in the losses to Marlette earlier.

"They can hit the ball and they run the bases well," added Titus. "They'll come motivated."

Two first-year varsity coaches will square off in the other semifinal - Erin Snyder at BC and Jaime Nicol at Sandusky. Both have some talent on their teams and motivation will be no problem.

Snyder, who has a dangerous group of contact hitters, knows her team will want to go for a three-peat.

Nicol, meanwhile, has her team on a sound fundamental track and building some momentum.

"I definitely think we have a big chance to win (County title)," said Nicol. "We're going in there and going to fight for it."

While the Lady Redskins face BC in the noon semifinal, Marlette opens the tourney with CPS at 10 a.m.