YoungLife pickleball tournament draws 37 players at Bruce Park

Thirty-seven players turned out for YoungLife’s 2026 Spring Pickleball Tournament at the Bruce Park PicklePlex courts, giving the ministry-backed event a bigger footprint than its first edition and showing how quickly amateur pickleball can become a community staple in the valley.

The tournament was held Sunday afternoon, May 3, on a cool and windy day in Bruce Park, and Alli Childers, the director for YoungLife serving Wetzel, Tyler and Monroe counties, organized the event. The weather did little to slow participation, and the turnout suggested the format has found a comfortable place for players who want competition without the scale and pressure of a major tournament.

YoungLife opened online registration for the 2026 tournament on January 22 and closed it on March 26, giving players a clear window to sign up weeks before the first serve. That timeline underscores how these local events are planned well in advance, even when they still carry the feel of a neighborhood gathering. The player pool also drew from across the valley, according to the report, which gave the tournament a broader regional reach than a simple one-town fundraiser.

The Bruce Park event has roots in a smaller but already established tradition. Young Life hosted its first pickleball tournament on Saturday morning, May 18, 2024, also at Bruce Park, when 22 competitors took part in men’s and women’s doubles. That first tournament was held as a fundraiser to help local high school students pay for Young Life camp that summer, tying the sport directly to the organization’s youth mission.

The 2024 event also highlighted Young Life’s local history. The organization had a long presence in the area, had been back only since around 2019, and at the time was operating only at Magnolia High School. Leaders hoped to expand into schools in Wetzel, Tyler and Monroe counties and eventually add a middle-school Wyldlife branch. That same framework still shapes the tournament’s appeal: it works as both a pickleball draw and a fundraising tool for a program rooted in local schools.

Going from 22 competitors in 2024 to 37 players in 2026 points to rising participation, and it suggests Bruce Park has become more than a one-off venue. For amateur pickleball in New Martinsville and the surrounding counties, the YoungLife tournament is now part of the calendar, with room to grow if the turnout keeps climbing.