Five years ago, fast-pitch softball was in its infancy in Warren County. The area’s high school programs were just getting started and there were no youth programs to speak of.

Three years ago, it was starting to catch on. The high school teams were growing and improving, a handful of tournament teams had sprung up and the Vicksburg Girls Softball Association started a modest tournament called the “Rumble on the River.”

Fast forward to 2005, and one will see an explosion in the sport’s popularity in Vicksburg. There are now a half-dozen tournament teams, and three high school programs are perennial playoff contenders.

And that modest little tournament? It has grown right alongside the sport, more than doubling in size from 12 to 26 teams in only three years.

The 2005 Rumble on the River tournament begins tonight at Bazinsky Park. Twenty-six teams in four age groups – 10-, 12-, 14- and 16-and-under – will play 70 games in three days.

The Vicksburg Blazers (12-and-under), Mississippi Sluggers (14-and-under) and Diamond Dolls (16-and-under) will represent Warren County.

“It just keeps growing, and what’s going to happen eventually is we’re going to have to cut it off because we’re limited for space,” VGSA president Rhea Fuller said of the tournament, which he is also the director of.

When the Rumble was started, Fuller envisioned it becoming a softball version of the Governor’s Cup. That youth baseball tournament, held each year at Halls Ferry Park in early August, draws more than 60 teams from Mississippi and Louisiana.

The only thing keeping the Rumble on the River from getting there, Fuller said, is a lack of fields.

This weekend’s tournament will use the only three fast-pitch fields in Warren County, as well as a baseball field that has been converted for the weekend.

Planned improvements to Bazinsky Park will add a field next year and likely allow tournament organizers to invite up to 10 more teams, Fuller said. A proposed recreational complex south of town would add up to nine more softball fields and allow the city to host bigger and more important tournaments.