The crack of the bat is back.

The Rocky Nelson Wooden Bat Classic will be hosted Saturday at Portsmouth West. All teams will use wooden bats instead of aluminum.

The Ironton Fighting Tigers will be part of the field and open at 10 a.m. against Wellston (16-2). The teams will play at the Portsmouth West field.

Leading the Golden Rockets is Pat Hendershot who has been coaching at Wellston since 1974. Hendershot is closing in on 500 career victories.

Wellston is the top seed in its sectional tournament.

The other 10 a.m. game has Western Brown against Greenup County, Ky., at Earl Thomas Conley Park.

At noon, Portsmouth West faces Hillsboro

at West while White Oak goes against Northwestern at Conley Park.

The 2 p.m. games have Ironton playing Hillsboro at Conley Park and White Oak taking on Greenup County at West.

The final games at 4 p.m. will have West versus Northwestern at West and Wellston tangling with Western Brown at Conley Park.

Admission is $2.

A Rocky Nelson MVP award will be given to the top player from each team.

Also, tournament director John Carpenter will be on hand to sign autographs of his Ripley's Believe It or Not cartoon which honors him for being the owner of the world's largest privately owned sports memorabilia collection.