Men's fastpitch is returning to Portage la Prairie this weekend.

The Portage Phillies will be welcoming a few teams to Rotary Republic Park including the New Zealand U19 Development team and Team Toba's U-19 team as well. The Phillies received the go-ahead to host the Kiwi Cup from Softball Manitoba.

"It's an interesting tournament," says co-coordinator Larry Dewis. "We have the opportunity that Softball Manitoba gave us to host this tournament. There's a representative from the New Zealand development team here that is looking for games and that's how this got started. There's also going to be the U-19 Team Toba team, the Canada Summer Games team, from Cross Lake. There will also be three other teams involved, the Peguis Redman, the Portage Phillies, and the La Salle Bullets."

Dewis says it's a really unique opportunity and they're pleased Softball MB would extend the invitation to Portage.

"I assume they offered it to us because we have a great facility here in town," says Dewis. "Plus, the Portage people have really rallied behind these types of events before."

The tournament will be a round-robin format where each team plays one another. The team with the worst record will be eliminated while the rest advance to the semifinal.

"New Zealand has always been strong in fastball," admits Dewis. "I'm expecting them to be a good team because they primarily play fastball in New Zealand and they learn to pitch at an early age. I expect them to be a good team."

Dewis adds events like this are always a lot of fun to play when there are spectators in the mix, as it creates that much better of an atmosphere with a big crowd. The first game starts Saturday at 10 a.m. and there will be games running right through to Sunday at 4 p.m.