Babe Ruth World Series: A LOOK AT THE FIELD, AMERICAN DIVISION
Ten teams are placed in two five-team pools. The top three squads advance to the single elimination tournament that begins on Thursday.
All 10 teams play a minimum of four pool games in a round-robin format.
AMERICAN DIVISION
1. Columbia Basin RiverDogs, 38-20, qualified as hosts.
2. Mobile, Alabama, 24-0, qualified as Southeast Region champs, beat Triangle South (N.C.), 2-1.
Roster: Troy Brown, Corey Bryan, Trey Chambers, Greg Conner, Zac Fowler, David Hale, Brett Hendrix, Josh Hollingsworth, Cole Jarman, Garrett Kirkland, Brandon Kiser, Rockford McCord, Taylor Nichols, Michael Radoslovich, Dylan Stamey, James Traylor, Bret Underwood, Matthew Wojciechowski. Head Coach: Tony Hendrix.
QUICK LOOK: The defending champions of this 16-18 age group return to the final tournament with a 24-0 record despite serious cosmetic changes to the lineup.
"We are a little young, but we stil have six guys back from last year," coach Hendrix said. "Our goal was to get to Washington, take a new approach and just go play."
Hendrix likes a little bit of everything about his team which could still add to its six previous championships won in 1997, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2007, and last year.
"We really have some young pitching and our hitting has been very good," Tony Hendrix said. "Our defense is a little suspect. One advantage we have is that we can still play in December while you are a foot under snow here. We left at three in the morning and it was already 91 degrees."
This will be Hendrix's 14 season with the squad.
"We have been fortunate to win six titles and we are just going to go out and play hard and see what happens," Tony Hendrix said.
3. San Gabriel Valley, California, 4-0, qualified as Pacific Southwest champs, beat Watsonville, California, 5-4.
Roster: Gary Acuna, John Alexander, Ted Boeke, Kirk Edson, Martin Gallegos, Bryce Harrison, Jon Laarson, Adam Mccreery, Andrew Medina, Troy Mulcahey, Kyle Murray, Troy Prosertsit, Mark Saatzer, Brenne Salgado, Cam Silva. Elliot Surrey, Nick Wagner, Daniel Zamora, Head Coach: Phil Torres.
QUICK LOOK:Some teams playing in Ephrata this next week are still trying to get to know one another.
Such is the case with San Gabriel Valley who only played four games, the qualifying region tournament, before the World Series.
"A team like the RiverDogs who play traditionally over the summer definitely have the advantage because they get to play together longer," Torres said. "Most of our kids are at rival high schools who play against each other all the time so putting them together is cool."
Torres is still trying to figure his team out as the curtain sets to raise.
"I dont think we used the same lineup in the four games," Torres said. "We were keeping people where there are most comfortable. Our kids have done well in practice and they have done a real good job working together considering the big area where we are from. They did a nice job travelling last week and mixed in well together."
Six members of Torres' squad play for his high school program, helping bring a level of comfort for a squad that draws from the Rose Bowl neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
"We have a lot of young players," Torres said. "We had some good pitching and we should catch well. We don't know until we get up there since we lost three good players from that tourbnament and added three good players who wanted to join. We'll just strap it on and get ready to play when we get there."
4. Ottumwa, Iowa, 24-2, qualified as Midwest Plains Region champs, beat Minnetonka, Minnesota, 7-1.
Roster: Tyler Evans, Zach Throckmorton, J.C. Salter, Seth Jones, Jordan McDonald, Jake Stalzer, Craig Larkin, Court Garrett, Jory Heckenberg, Andrew Utterback, Austin Westercamp, Mac Mattke, Calvin Mathews, Josh Martsching, Austin Roberts. Nicholas Johnson. Head Coach: Cal Evans.
QUICK LOOK: Making their second straight World Series appearance, it wouldn't be a stretch for Ottumwa to claim the title as the field's youngest team.
In Iowa, the high school baseball season competes into the mid-summer, with Babe Ruth play sandwiching such play on the calender.
So coach Evans, who saw his Babe Ruth team play in March through May and again just recently, likes that his current roster has been to the big show once before.
"We would like to think we are a little older, a little wiser since we were more of a deer in headlights last year," Evans said. "We were real young last year and we have most of the same boys and about half are now heading to college ball. Last year we won only one game and we want to do better than that."
The team's main goal is to enjoy themselves while in Ephrata and they could take comfort in the knowledge that the Columbia Basin area reminds them home of approximately 25,000 citizens.
"That wont hurt us at all since it's an agricultural area," Evans said. "We have a lot of farm boys on our team so it being a small community wont hurt us a bit. We will be at home with that."
Evans' squad is composed of all high school players while other teams have at least some college-bound athletes dotting rosters.
Still, the team has done well in getting this far.
"You cant really go off our record since during our regular season we play a lot of small communities and play high school teams," Evans said "We haven't been together as a team since we played from (March to May) for our regular season and not again until we got together at regionals. We know we are playing a high level of ball but we hope we can do a little better this year."
Their defense and pitching could be key this week in Ephrata, Evans said.
5. Onadaga County, New York, 5-1, qualified as Middle Atlantic Region champs, beat Onadaga 2, 12-3.
Roster: David Campese, Chris Davis, Mark Centollela, Kyano Cummings, Erik Krohl, Ryan Mahar, Jeremy Mathers, Nathan Nigolian, Shawn Peake, Joe Pokrentowski, Andrew Sanders, Andrew Schreyack, Aiden Wiese and Matt Yonta. Alex Caruso, Brett Charbonneau, Ryan O'Kane and Pat Wright. Head Coach: Ted Klamm.
QUICK LOOK: Only together long enough to qualify for the World Series thanks to a strong Middle Atlantic Region tournament run, Onodaga County could be stronger for their travels to Ephrata.
The team was hit with enough plane delays and missed connections due to "mechanical error" due to coach Klamm as they arrived in Washington many hours later than expected.
Now that they are here it is down to business for what amounts to the Syracuse-area's all star team,
"It's a little bit more difficult since we didn't get as much practice time," Klamm said. "The high school coaches around here want their teams to play all summer to keep their teams together. Do I like it? I would like to play more games together, but the high school season is more important and they do get to play together."
Regardless of the short time together, the team has high hopes thanks to a strong lineup.
"We have a very good lineup," Klamm said. "In the regional we hit the ball very well. We have top end pitching, but our offense is our strength. We have speed also at the top and the end of our lineup so we have kids that can run."
Five of the players won the Babe Ruth 15s World Series last year and so they lend experience to the squad while three kids have the added edge of playing in three separate levels of championship play.
With that in mind, Klamm's squad will enter the great unknown of this weekend with plenty of history on its side.
"It is so hard because we haven't been able to look at other teams here so the objective is to go down and win one game at a time and qualify for next weekend," Klamm said. "Then anything can happen."