Rhode Island Thunder Gold Lotti & Hops FP Merge!

Dave Lotti’s nationally recognized Rhode Island Thunder Gold Organization and Matt Hopkins’ Hops FastPitch have merged to offer players the best of both worlds when it comes to softball opportunities in the northeast. Opportunities for 10U-18U players to play local, regional or at the national level (12UN-18UN).

Players and families will get the best the northeast has to offer at ALL age levels and more importantly at all player levels when it comes to player development, sport specific and strength training, PT, and a training facility.

Rhode Island Thunder National is a college prep program that plays in the best tournaments in the country on the best fields vs the best competition. Lotti’s organization has sent 100’s of players to play college softball over the last 26 years. Players have played for schools in the Big 4 D1 programs (SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12), Mid-Majors (Big East, A10, Patriot, SCC, etc) as well as many D2 and D3 programs. Robert Rossi (Recruiting Coordinator) with 20+ years’ experience placing players and strong relationships with 100’s of college coaches.

Hops FP provides many intro opportunities for players at younger ages (10U-14U) to participate in competitive softball and a path to play middle school, high school or college ball. In addition, the Hops Facility offers all players extra training, hitting, pitching and fielding/throwing programs.

The combined organizations will field multiple teams at each age level (10U-18U and competition level (local, regional, and national schedules). Players can now stay in ONE organization through their whole softball journey and be part of The Rhode Island Thunder & Hops family.

All tryouts for the 2025-2026 season, player registration, and team assignments will be handled via league apps on rhodeislandthunder.com - and players can sign up for tryouts at https://rhodeislandthunder.leagueapps.com/events/4556144-ri-thunder-2025-2026-tryouts.

For clarity purposes, our programs will be identified as follows: