Kalista and Jameson Birkenstock lost their father to a diabetic shock on July 5, 2018, and over the past few months, they’ve discussed the best way to honor their father.

That’s where the First Annual Strikeout Diabetes Classic, a 16U softball tournament that will be played on Saturday Nov. 21 at the Hudson Valley Sportsdome in Milton, was born.

The all-day tournament will feature eight teams in two divisions, and there will be two Empire State Huskies national softball teams involved.

Kalista Birkenstock, a shortstop and second baseman at Marlboro High School, plays for one for the Huskies 14U team, coached by Chris Rowan, which will play up to the 16U level.

The Dutchess Debs, The Empire State Huskies 16U, the Orange County Bombers and the Kingston Royals will make up the Ram Division.

Each team will play three pool play games in its own division, with the top 2 teams in each division moving on to the semifinals. In the semifinals, the No. 1 seed from the Jeep division will play No. 2 from the Ram division, and the No. 1 seed from the Ram division will play the second-place team from the Jeep division.

The winners will meet in the championship round.

Each game will be 80 minutes and played in a drop-dead revert format. If an inning is not complete when the time limit is up, the game is decided by the score of the last completed inning. Pool-play home teams will be determined by a coin toss.
Pool play games will have 1 umpire and there will be two umpires for the playoff games.

The teams feature athletes throughout the area. In addition to Birkenstock, Marlboro’s Ava DelSalto is a pitcher for the Kingston Royals.

Madison Sicardo of Valley Central plays for the 16U Beacon Extreme, while Lauren Serrao, also of Valley Central plays for the Dutchess Debs.

The tournament also provides Kalista and Jameson Birkenstock a way to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Type 1 Diabetes affects about 1.6 million Americans, including 200,000 youth (people younger than 20) and more than 1 million adults. About 60,000 people are diagnosed with the disease each year in the U.S.

About 5 million people in the U.S. are expected to have Type 1 Disease by 2050, and the number is estimated to increase up to 600,000 youth by 2050.