San Benito Babe Ruth prepares for All Star tournament
And you thought two-a-days were only for football.
The San Benito Babe Ruth 13-year-old All-Stars, fresh off a
season that ended just last weekend, have been hitting the baseball
diamond twice-a-day this past week, gearing up for their Central
California State Qualifier Tournament this weekend in
Hollister.
San Benito will open the tournament
– a tournament they won last year – against Manteca Saturday at
1 p.m.
San Benito Babe Ruth prepares for All Star tournament
And you thought two-a-days were only for football.
The San Benito Babe Ruth 13-year-old All-Stars, fresh off a season that ended just last weekend, have been hitting the baseball diamond twice-a-day this past week, gearing up for their Central California State Qualifier Tournament this weekend in Hollister.
San Benito will open the tournament – a tournament they won last year – against Manteca Saturday at 1 p.m.
“I think we look really good,” manager Angel Rueda said. “Our pitching is coming along real well. We’re not gonna be as deep as a lot of other teams, but the players that we have are gonna be head-and-shoulders above a lot of players their own age.”
The newly added Junior League, which is under the Hollister Little League, provides another option for 13 and 14 year olds in the area, but perhaps leaves San Benito Babe Ruth without some players it would have had in years past.
But Rueda, who manages the team with coaches Julian and Abram Gaytan, feels that a regular season that pitted members of his team against other 13 year olds, as well as other 14 and 15 year olds in Babe Ruth, will only make his team stronger in the long run.
“Now that they’re gonna be against just 13 year olds, the ball is gonna look a lot bigger to them,” Rueda said. “I think we’re gonna have a good one.”
The team is squeezing 10 practices into five days this week, and are making the lazy days of summer look exhausting. Ideally, the squad looks to focus on offense in their morning session and defense in their evening session, but sometimes, like what happened on Tuesday, the morning session runs long and every facet of the game is touched upon.
“I think we’re practicing enough to get ready for the next tournament,” said San Benito’s Dalan Hoskins, who added that he wasn’t tired at all from the amount of practices this week. “It’s pretty fun.”
“There were some players that wanted to do triple sessions … There are kids who show up everyday that want to learn and want to do well. It’s not work, it’s fun,” Rueda added.
Last year, the 13-year-old Babe Ruth All-Stars breezed through the competition in the Central California State Qualifier Tournament, which was also held in Hollister. That squad went 4-0 and crushed Manteca 24-0 in the championship game.
Manteca will make an appearance this year, as will Oakdale and O’Keefe, which will square off in the other opening-round match-up. Lodi received a first-round bye and won’t play until Sunday against the Oakdale-O’Keefe victor.
Avoiding a second-round game with Lodi means San Benito would only need four wins to successfully defend their title from 2007.
And the team will rely on its pitching to accomplish that goal, said San Benito’s Skyler Shaw-Fuss.
“Pitching,” he said. “We have three or four super-good guys. We have a lot of strong [pitchers].”
While the San Benito 13 year olds will be kicking off the All-Star season in Hollister, other teams from the area will be doing so as well, either this weekend or next.
The San Benito 14- and 15-year-old Babe Ruth All-Stars will open their respective state-qualifying tournaments in Modesto on July 5 and in Tracy on July 1, respectively.
The 14s will play O’Keefe in an eight-team double-elimination bracket, and could see either Lodi or Tracy in a second-round match-up.
Like their 13-year-old counterparts last year, the 14s triumphed in the state qualifier by compiling a 3-0 record and outscoring their opponents by a 34-2 margin.
The 15s will play O’Keefe as well in a seven-team double-elimination bracket, with a win setting them up for a second-round date with Lodi. Last year’s 15 year olds battled their way through the loser’s bracket, but finished runner-up to Manteca in the end.
This year’s 13 year olds, with a “fire in their eyes,” Rueda said, are rather determined to make it back to the title game.
When asked what the team’s weakness was, Shaw-Fuss said after a long pause that, if anything, it was hitting.
But the double-days may just remedy that.
“By the end of the week,” Shaw-Fuss said, “we should be a strong hitting team.”
