COVID-19 couldn’t stop one of the biggest youth sports tournaments Plant City usually hosts from coming back in 2020.
The annual United Youth Football League “Run for the Rings,” a national championship football tournament with nearly 200 teams from all over the country competing in 21 divisions, came back to Ellis-Methvin Park on Dec. 6 and will continue through Friday’s slate of championship games. This year marks the 10th in which Plant City has hosted the UYFL’s biggest tournament and the sixth in which the action has been hosted at Ellis-Methvin. The Otis M. Andrews Sports Complex hosted all of the games prior to 2016, when the tournament acted as a test run of sorts for the Ellis-Methvin fields (which were completed shortly afterward with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Dec. 15, 2016).
Games are played on seven fields at Ellis-Methvin — six of which are adjacent to one another — and there is also a big stage area where championship winners receive trophies, rings and more bling when they win.
The Plant City Dolphins, as always, have entered the tournament and fielded five teams in the 8U All-American Division 2, 9U All-American Division 2, 10U All-American Division 2, 6U All-Star and 15U All-Star brackets.
Visit unitedyfl.com to purchase tickets. Brackets are viewable online as always, but the UYFL has switched to TourneyMachine for a more user-friendly experience. You can now select certain teams to “follow” throughout the tournament, meaning you no longer have to search extensively for results every time you want to check on a team. Brackets are viewable at https://www.tourneymachine.com/public/mobile/WebApp/index.aspx?IDTournament=h201912151849510978da41366c85840#.
Semifinal games will be held all day today and championship games will be held all day tomorrow. The UYFL’s annual Cheer, Dance and Step National Championships will be held from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday at the Florida State Fairgrounds.