Breckenridge Little League Intermediate All-Stars to play in state tournament this week
The Breckenridge Little League 13u Intermediate All-Stars team will play in the Texas West State Tournament – Intermediate Division – this week in Abilene. The team is undefeated this year.
The Breckenridge team will play its first game against Midland Northern at 8 p.m. Thursday, July 11, at the Abilene Wylie Little League Fields on the south side of Abilene. The tournament will continue through July 14. The Breckenridge games will be broadcast on KLXK radio, FM 93.5, with Charlie Parker and Robert Burchett. Listeners can tune in on the radio or through the station’s website, klxkkrooradio.com.
The Breckenridge team is an all-stars team of 13-year-olds, most of whom have been playing together since they were about 8- or 9-years-old. The team includes Jackson Curtis, Christian Arellano, Kayden Garcia, Ashton Reyes, Caiden Marin, Braye Cantrell, Camden Escalon, Aaron Moore, Cannon Valenzuela and Mason Vega. Coaches are Van Moore, Jesse Arellano and Raymond Marin.
Moore said that for that age group, Breckenridge usually only has one team during the regular season and it travels around and plays teams from other communities. Then, at the end of the season, the kids from that team can choose stay on and play for the all-star team if they are interested. This year’s all-stars team includes all but three from the regular season team.
“All of our boys on the team currently play travel ball and have played travel ball for awhile, so we’ve been going against tougher big city competition for a while,” Moore said. “We have outstanding pitching and pretty good hitting, too. All the way through the line-up, they can hit pretty well.”
It’s a well-rounded team, the coach said. “We’ve kind of got everything. We’ve got speed; we’ve got several catchers, several pitchers. I’ve got several kids I kind of just put anywhere,” Moore said. “There’s not really anybody that just plays only one spot. They’ve all done several spots.”
During the regular season, the team had a 12-0 record and won the District 5 Inter-league championship, beating teams from Abilene Wylie, Abilene Teenage League, Jim Ned, Cisco, Clyde and Hawley. They outscored their opponents for the season 184-14.
Then, the Breckenridge team won the All-Stars District 5 Tournament, followed by the Section 2 Tournament, giving them a record of 16-0 for the season and tournaments.
This week, the Breckenridge team is playing in the Texas West State Tournament, along with three other Texas West All Stars teams. There is also a Texas East State Tournament that will be played later this month. The winners from both state tournaments will represent Texas in the Southwest Regional Tournament.
A Breckenridge Team for this division has never gone this far before, Moore said. The only other time a Breckenridge team went to this level before was the Junior Division team in 2016; the players from that team are now the incoming junior and senior players on the Breckenridge High School varsity baseball team, he said.
“I think they all know that this is historic,” Moore said of the Intermediate Little League team. “They want to keep going on no matter how tough the competition is. It helps their success that it’s growing baseball wise in Breckenridge, seeing the high school team and the success they’ve had and the teams in the past. You know, our two other All-Stars teams went pretty deep this year, as well. They were undefeated for about two or three rounds for some of them. It’s starting to be part of the culture. We’ve just got to get used to that success and not lose focus.”
Moore said the success of the Breckenridge High School baseball team this year has helped motivate the Little League team. Several of the younger players have brothers or cousins on the varsity or junior varsity teams. “They know that they’ll be there eventually, and they know that this is kind of the route that those boys took,” he said. “So they’re excited about getting that chance to represent Breckenridge at the varsity level, as well.”
The winner of the Texas West State Tournament will be one of two Texas representatives at the
Southwest Regional Tournament, along with the winner of the Texas East tournament. They will play against teams such a Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Mississippi. That will determine who represents the Southwest United States in the International Tournament.
More information about this week’s tournament is available on the tournament website at http://www.texasweststatetournament.org.
The Breckenridge Little League 13u Intermediate All-Stars team poses with the banners from the three championships they’ve won so far this season. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)
Story by Tony Pilkington and Carla McKeown/Breckenridge Texan
Cutline, top photo: The undefeated Breckenridge Little League 13u Intermediate All-Stars team will play in the Texas West State Tournament – Intermediate Division – this week in Abilene. The first game will begin at 8 p.m. Thursday, July 11. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)
