The 12u Owensboro Eastern Cal Ripken All-Stars are looking to bring home some hardware when they compete in the Ohio Valley Regional Tournament.
Owensboro Eastern has had weeks of practices and a slew of games under their belt since they began in Scottsville, Kentucky, last week in the State Tournament.
Eastern fared well, but came up just short of a state title, falling to Green County 3-2 in the State Championship.
However, their performance amongst some of the best in state earned them a spot in the Regional Tournament. Head Coach and League President Otis Sowders said he and the team are thrilled to see their hard work pay off.
“We’re a really good competitive team,” Sowders said. “All the boys are excited about it. It’s been a big team effort, we’ve been working hard for the last three and a half weeks. We’ve been practicing three or four days a week to get ready for this stuff.”
There will be three pools of play with three teams each, with two teams from each pool advancing to single elimination before ultimately getting it down to two teams for a championship.
With a slew of games coming their way, Sowders knows that the depth they have on the mound will be crucial.
“We’re loaded with pitching,” Sowders said. “That’s our strongpoint. We really do have a lot of pitching and that’ll benefit us to get us through a regional tournament with the way it’s set up.”
One thing Sowders and company have really focused on in preparation for the upcoming regional games was making contact with the ball.
“We really started focusing on hitting, [specifically] hitting faster pitching from the distances we’re [not accustomed to],” Sowders said. “We play 50-70 during the year, so it’s a little bit different, so we moved into 46-60 which is basically little league distances. So we’re just making adjustments to hitting the ball at a faster speed from shorter distances.”
Sowders thinks that if they can string together hits on offense they’ll be hard to beat with a solid defense backing up their arsenal of pitching.
“That’s been the best thing for us is our defense, so now it’s time for our bats to wake up,” Sowders said. “If our bats get going I think we’ll continue to go.”
The Owensboro Eastern 12u All-Stars will take the field for its first game at 9 a.m. before following up with its second game at 11 a.m. on Friday.
