As the summer softball season winds down, only a few notable events remain before the Amateur Softball Association’s national tournaments take place at the end of the month and into early August.

One of those events is the Atlanta Legacy Showcase, which is entering its second year as one of the premiere exposure tournaments in the Southeast.

Held at Twin Creeks Softball Complex and Hobgood Park in Woodstock, and the Sandy Plains Park in east Cobb, the four-day showcase begins today and has more than doubled in size since its inception last year. An estimated 100 teams from across the Southeast and beyond — with some teams traveling from as far as Indiana, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Maryland —have come to compete and prepare for the ASA national tournaments.

But a key component of the showcase is to give up-and-coming players, as well as those currently committed to college teams, an opportunity to display their skills in front of college scouts and coaches with the hopes of landing a future scholarship.

“We anticipate well over 100 coaches will watch over 100 teams play this weekend,” Atlanta Vipers 18U Gold coach Phil Berry said. “The most important thing about this event is that the young ladies that are playing who are on Georgia teams get to have an exposure tournament in their own backyard.

“We don’t have to travel and incur those costs, and the college coaches come to us to watch our girls play. The original goal of the Legacy was to facilitate a way to get college coaches and girls who have come up through Georgia travel ball systems together.

“We see a lot of exposure through the travel ball environment now because there are showcase tournaments set up specifically for the college coaches to go to. Some recruiting is still done at the high school level, but when a college coach can come see a full tournament of girls all desiring to compete at the college level, it makes it easier for coaches to see girls in an environment like that.”

Established by the Atlanta Vipers and Georgia Impact organizations, the showcase begins today with the six-team Georgia Dugout Club Elite 80 Showcase at Twin Creeks.

Starting Friday, the event will focus on travel-ball games, with at least 100 teams divided into 17 pools of six teams each. Each of the teams, which have been separated into three divisions, are expected to play what amounts to five or six games over three days.

Games Friday and Saturday will run from 8 a.m., with the final contests scheduled to start at 8:15 p.m. Sunday’s games will begin at 8 a.m., with the last contests starting at 1:15 p.m.

“We’re pleased to host the event with our partners,” Berry said. “I can’t wait to see the girls on the field competing hard and showing what they can do for the college coaches.

“A few of the teams are also using the Legacy as a final tuneup to prepare them for their respective runs at nationals in the following weeks. It should be a great event.”