Central City again sent a team to the MCYSA/USSSA International Tournament in Crystal Lake, Illinios, USA.
This was the second year we have participated in this tournament held in the last 2 weeks of July each year. The tournament has been running for 18 years, and this year was attended by +650 players, from 7 countries.
This link will take you to the Tournament website...
www.mcysasports.org
And this link will take you to the Photo's of the Central City team...
mcysa.smugmug.com
Following on from the success of last year’s trip to Crystal Lake Illinois, the Central City U17 team decided to return again this year.
The decision to return was supported by McHenry Youth Sports Association (MCYSA) and United States Speciality Sport Association (USSSA) who sent down Apparel (MLB Shirts, Hats, and Socks, pants) to be sold in NZ to assist funding for the teams trip in 2010.
MCYSA also provided three coaches to assist our team and once again arranged HomeStay families for the team.
The MCYSA/USSSA Tournament is a 10 day tournament program that is used by many of the key USA Baseball teams as their ultimate Tournament for their summer program. Some of the teams who attend are Academy, State Champion, or Regional Travelling teams who have been on the road since the start of June attending various 3-5 day tournaments. Therefore some of these teams have played some 60-80 games of baseball since the start of June.
With the tournament also being the
USSSA 2010 World Series International Open, once again there was a large contingent of International teams:- Japan, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, etc.
The Central City team was only able to pull together 7 boys to travel this year, including the Canfield brothers who shifted to Florida in January, the call went out to other NZ clubs and we were able to secure 3 players from Canterbury.
While last year 19 boys travelled to Crystal Lake, training up until we left, we were only able to avoid the Mercy Rule in one game, the trip providing some great experience and skill building.
This year we used Indoor facilities, when the grounds became too wet to train on, although it was difficult to train as a team with the boys being located in 3 different cities.
The First day in Crystal Lake saw us play 2 warm-up games, one against the Tournament hosts Crystal Lake Babe Ruth, who were also celebrating their 50th year. While the boys were a little jetlagged they managed to compete for most of the game, the final score probably more an indication of the heat the boys were playing in (34deg C) than their skills.
The first round robin day of the tournament was washed out, so the games were delayed till the Sunday.
The first tournament game against “Around the Horn Stampede” from Michigan, started with en-trepidation as they came with a tough reputation. At the end of the 4th Innings we were 4 runs up, however at this point we also had to change out our Pitcher, to keep within the Pitching rules, and then our weakness was exposed. Ja’rome Ritchie was our top pitcher and there was quite a gap to our 2,3 & 4th pitchers, so unfortunately once we changed pitchers we let in a few too many runs, the final score was 7:5 to Stampede.
We played 5 round robin games, and 3 knockout games unfortunately we were unable to win any of them.
The highlight of the tournament was the Night game, where we again played CL Babe Ruth. The night started with presentations, National Anthems and the Haka. We started the game well and were up in the 4th Innings, however again our pitching let us down once Ja’rome had pitched his allotted 4 innings and following a confusing Umpire call at home base, where we lost 2 runs, we finished the game 7:5.
Overall the team played very well, were far more competitive than last year and received accolades from Umpires, Organisers and supporters for their skills, attitude and sportsmanship.
USSSA and MCYSA are very keen to have a New Zealand team back in 2011, unfortunately most of the boys of the previous trips being too old for a 15&under tournament.
However a number of the boys have been invited to join some of the Academy or Travelling teams, if they wish to take a couple of months (June/July) next year, although sponsorship would need to be sort with costs exceeding US$10K, for these.
USSSA has also invited us to enter teams in both the U16 & U18 World Series in Columbia, South Carolina in 2011.
Players who travelled for the 2010 tournament were:
Central City - Tim Olliff, Nick Gadbaw, Ja’rome Ritchie, Cory Tipene, Conor Magee-Watling
Canterbury - James Davis, Liam O’Donoghue, Matt Boyce
Florida – David & AJ Canfield
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