Nuscotomek's Palomino, Colt teams reflect on World Series experience

“We went down there to compete and we did,” Palomino head coach Steve Cantway said. “We felt good about that and we played well. Our defense played very well, but we just didn’t get the hits.”

Coming in with championship hopes the Nuscotomek Palomino title shot took a turn for the worst when they suffered a 12-1 opening round defeat to Laredo, Texas, this past Friday. The first-round defeat left them to fall into the consolation bracket, where they wound up going 1-1 with a 6-5 loss to Covina, Cal., and a 11-4 victory over San Antonio.

After a heartbreaking one-run loss to Covina, the Mad Sturgeons came out uber-focused in their finale, tallying a dozen hits in their seven-run win that ended the tournament on a high note.

“It’s always a plus because we didn’t want to come home with an “L” on our foreheads,” Cantway said. “… We did OK and won the game, which was good.”

Despite not achieving the level of success they had originally planned to have on the diamond, the Nuscotomek players were able to make new connections with opposing players as well as getting a chance to explore the city of Laredo during their downtime.

“I’ll remember just hanging out with the other teams because we were all put in the same environment,” catcher and outfielder Jason Moore said. “So it was really up to you; if you wanted to make a different connection with a player from Mexico or Lithuania, you just had to go up and talk to them

“It was cool to connect with different players and play my last bit of baseball in the area.”

One of the Nuscotomek players who went out of his way the most to connect with international players was 6-foot-7 first baseman Tyler Murray. Beginning from the tournament’s opening ceremony on Thursday evening, the 12U Bronco team from Mexico became fixated with Murray’s tall stature, leaving him to build connections with the international youth baseball players over the course of the five day tournament.

“We ended up playing the 12U Mexico team in a full team-on-team laser tag at this Dave and Buster’s-type place called Main Event, and that was one of the last things we did,” Murray said. “Everybody on each team loved it and we were all joking around and having fun.”

Murray noted that his ability to connect with the youth stems from his summer job that’s youth-oriented at the Limestone Township Park District.

“I work with kids that are around the same age during summer camp and so I’m used to hanging around kids that age and having fun with them,” Murray said. “It was really cool to learn things from each other.”

Nuscotomek Colt League team stays in-state at world stage

Similarly to their older team, the Noscotomek Colt team had an excellent experience competing in the Colt League World Series despite going 1-2 overall.

Players not only got a chance to learn about different countries from players on the Dominican Republic, German, Japanese and Mexican teams, but they also got a chance to bond with one another at the welcoming picnic party, skills competitions and team dinner.

“The kids had fun and they made new friends with the other teams — Japan and Mexico — hanging out,” head coach Perry Wright said. “The kids had a great experience for the time that we were down there.”

Nuscotomek had three of its players compete in the tournament’s skills competition, which featured a homerun derby and a fastest runner competition last Thursday prior to the opening round of the tournament. Each participating World Series team selected two players for the derby and one of its players for the running event.

Each hitter got three warm up pitches before getting five outs to go yard, with the top-four advancing to the final round. The sprint competition was a timed event going from home to home, touching all bases, with the fastest time being the winner.

Clay Gadbois and Ty Alderson represented Nuscotomek in the derby while Jackson Shelton competed in the running event.

“It was really special to compete in the homerun derby,” Alderson said. “I didn’t do great in it, but it was nice to reach out to guys and mingle with them that first night during the derby.”

Once to tournament began on Friday one of the things Nuscotomek’s players quickly noticed was the different play styles for each team. Each international squad seemed to have its own strengths, which was something Alderson noted he’d seen during his time watching in the stands and competing against Germany, a team they beat 8-6 in their second game following a 12-1 loss to Greensboro, N.C., in the opening round.

“All of the international teams kind of had different play styles,” Alderson said. “We didn’t even play Japan, but just watching their pitchers, they had filthy offspeed pitches. …It was hard, but fun to see and compete against those teams.”

The time spent gathered in their home state with players from all across the globe is something Alderson and the rest of his teammates will remember forever.

“It was a really fun experience,” he said. “Just to meet all the guys that I did — from Mexico, Germany and Japan — it was really cool to meet all these guys and see baseball bring us all together.

“Even after we were eliminated just to watch those guys that I met was really special because it was like ‘I know him’ and so it was a really cool experience meeting everybody.”