Hurricanes blowing east

Published 7:00 am Wednesday, August 9, 2006

Bainbridge youth hardballers take the diamond in Cooperstown.

A group of Little League, Babe Ruth and Sandy Koufax players are headed to Cooperstown.

They won’t be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame, but the Bainbridge Island Hurricanes, a 12U version of the Bainbridge Niners Baseball Club, get to play in the Cooperstown Dreams Park Annual National tournament with 95 other teams from around the country starting Aug. 20.

For their participation, they’ll be immortalized in the American Youth Baseball Hall Of Fame along with the other teams that participate in the tournament.

Head coach Jeff Bowman said it’s one of the premier tournaments in the baseball community. He first became familiar with it when his older son was a member of a team while they lived in Massachusetts.

“The teams (we’ll play) are really good teams, so we’ll face better competition than we’ve seen all year,” he said. “It’s usually the best players that have played on an All-Star team.”

The Hurricanes, who took on the name in recognition of four players who were able to play thanks to the national change in the birthdate rule, are made up of 13 players, including 10 from the Little League Major National and American All-Star teams.

The National members include Robby Ackerley, Nick Denney, Lars Nelson, Duncan Newland-Thompson, Eric Raustein, Ryan “Willie” Schreck and Steven Wellbrock.

Rico Failla, Chance Roebke and Caleb Samson were selected from the American All-Star team.

Henry Indvik is the lone Babe Ruth representative, while Kevin Bowman and Logan Bowman are members Seattle Stars and Washington Brewers, respectively.

Both are part of the Sandy Koufax league.

“We went out and selected who the best players in the area are,” Bowman said.

The team, who is also being assisted by Jeff’s son Colin and Michael Heald, has been working together since last fall, participating in clinics put on by the Seattle Stars baseball club, baserunning clinics in the spring and numerous hours at practice.

They’re also taking part in tournaments, winning the Blue Jacket Invitational in Silverdale July 28-30 and looking ahead to the West Summer Baseball Championships this weekend.

They won three pool play games over Tracyton, Vancouver and Maple Valley, then rallied from an 8-1 defecit to defeat Port Angeles 18-8 in the semifinal.

The Hurricanes defeated Bonney Lake 6-5 in the championship game, as Roebke and Denney combined on the mound for the win.

Raustein drove in three runs with two doubles and scored what turned out to be the game winning run when Schreck tripled to the left field wall.

They’ll need to bring that success at the plate – eight of the 12 players hit .500 or better, and the team had 12 or more hits in every game – and their defense and baserunning talents to the tournament back East, as they will play with big barrel bats and go by baseball, not Little League rules.

Bowman said the facilites are “immaculate” and the players stay in an Olympic-like village away from their parents where they’ll get to do some pin trading with the other teams.

“They’ve been working pretty hard,” Bowman said. “It’s a really cool thing.”

The teams battle it out in pool play to determine seeding in the one day single elimination tournament.

Teams are also responsible for bringing along an umpire.

Bowman said longtime Little League umpire Chris Acuna will fly back with them, then Acuna will travel to Williamsport and participate in the Little League World Series.

The Bainbridge Niners were founded by Bowman and Little League manager Bill Ackerley in 2003 to act as “a network of coaches and baseball families looking to extend the baseball season and increase the level of competition for the boys into the best time of the year to be playing – summer and early fall,” Ackerley said.

Ackerley acts as the club’s general manager and helps select the players for the team.

He also stressed the importance of participation in other sports and performing well in school, “with the latter becoming a priority.”

*************

Hurricane season

To follow the Bainbridge Island Hurricanes in Cooperstown, see www.cooperstowndreamspark.com.