Holtville’s 10U baseball team has had a great run this summer. Last week, they competed in and won the 10U All-Stars USSSA 4A State Championship.
The tournament was riddled with bad weather and subsequent rain delays, but the Bulldogs persevered. They started bracket play on Saturday, their game set to start at 2:15 p.m., but rain caused it to be pushed back all the way until 7:45 when they began the game. Only half an inning in, the rain picked back up again and bracket play was delayed for one more day.
The team had to scramble to get hotels together, but were ultimately able to band together and figure it out. On Sunday morning, the boys came in ready to play. They won both their games in the morning and got ready to play again in the afternoon, although more storms pushed that game back until 8:30.
The Bulldogs were able to hold it together to win that game. The following game, the championship, didn’t start until 10:15 at night and ended at midnight. Following the tradition, the boys threw their coaches into the lake by 1:00 that morning to celebrate the victory.
“I couldn’t be more proud of the kids and how they played,” coach Casey Wylie said. “They persevere through the whole thing. They showed a lot of character, a lot of fight. THey wanted to be there. They love the sport, they love the game and it kept them fighting until we won all five games. It was all on them and they stuck with it. They were exhausted, but they didn’t let it show.”
Over the course of the weekend, the team combined for 48 hits with Luke Strowd, Easton Wylie, Asher Fullerton and Grayson Welch leading the team with batting averages. The team racked up 109 stolen bases, 64 runs and 36 RBIs.
The win qualified them for the World Series in Baton Rouge this past weekend. The Bulldogs did very well in pool play on Thursday and ended up with the sixth seed out of 24 teams competing in the tournament. They made it to the gold bracket, the top six teams in the tournament but ultimately lost out in bracket play.
The team included Tyson Wilson, Asher Fullerton, Carson Dickey, Ty Grooms, Easton Wylie, Ryder Hoots, Ethan Miller, Grayson Welch, Aiden Jones, Barrett Ward, Luke Strowd and Daemon Strength.
