Eric Killinger is a member of Newtown/CPC Inc.'s President's Club for consistently achieving more than $1 million in annual sales. As sales manager of the Fredericksburg, Va.-based manufacturer, he's an achiever in the printing field.
On the softball field, he's "Killa."
Killinger's nickname is fitting for a player who ended last season with a whopping .613 batting average. Toss in No. 11's aggressive play in left-center field, and you have a star on R.K. Construction, a men's slow-pitch softball team that won a National Softball Association (NSA) regional title last year.
Killinger's Fredericksburg-based team, which includes some former childhood buddies and other friends he met five years ago, won NSA's Northeast Super D World Series tournament last May in Salem, Va. He was one of five R.K. Construction players named to the All-Tournament Team, a group of players recognized as most valuable to their teams during the double-elimination event. "There's nothing like stepping up to the plate with the game on your shoulders," Killinger says. "A lot of eyes are on you, and it's a big stage. Tournaments are pressure-filled, but they're a lot of fun." He also won a regional title with a different team in 1998.
NSA organizes state, regional and national tournaments through sanctioned leagues and qualifying tournaments. It separates teams into several leagues based on participants (men, women, co-eds, church members) and pitch speed (slow and fast). It further separates some of those leagues into divisions (A, B, C, D, E) based on competitiveness, with A being the most competitive. The main rule difference among divisions is that the number of home runs permitted per team per game is higher as competitiveness increases. (Home runs hit after the maximum number are considered singles.)
The names of R.K. Construction's foes in Salem might sound amateurish--the team beat T-COP, North Carolina Furniture, Christian Farms and Rudd Realty (twice) on its way to the Northeast Super D World Series title--but players face serious competition in such tournaments. "You're playing teams that are trying to win a championship, so some of them are loaded," Killinger says. "We just played better as a team and were able to come out ahead."
The victory in Salem gave R.K. Construction a berth in NSA's 4-day Super World Series, a double-elimination event held last October in Las Vegas. As the team's speedy leadoff hitter, Killinger helped the squad finish with a 5-2 record, placing it fourth out of 78 teams. Again, he was named to the All-Tournament Team. While in Las Vegas, Killinger, his wife and most of his teammates stayed at the Golden Nugget and "had a blast with the whole Vegas experience," he says.
Killinger has whacked baseballs down the third-base line and thrown out runners from left-center field for more than two decades, and he plans to continue playing competitive softball for years. In fact, R.K. Construction's games will be more competitive this year: The team moved from the D division to the C division. "No matter who we're playing, we always have a great time--that's the important thing," Killinger says.
--Darin Painter
Eric Killinger, sales manager at Newtown/CPC Inc., a manufacturer based in Fredericksburg, Va., helped his softball team win a National Softball Association (NSA) regional title last year. The team finished fourth out of 78 at NSA's Super World Series in Las Vegas. Killinger was named to the All-Tournament Team at both events.
