By Staff
NILES - What started out as a dream for over 260 Little League teams at the beginning of July, ended up a reality for two teams from the Niles FOP Little League last weekend.
Both the 9/10 and 11/12 year-old FOP All-Star teams won their District 15 championships to earn a spot amongst the top 16 Little League teams in the entire State of Michigan.
Opening ceremonies were held on Saturday morning, July 23 with the 11/12 Little League State Tournament being held in Wyoming and the 9/10 State Tournament being held in West Branch.
Both teams carried their respective District 15 championship banners and paraded into the ceremonies along with the other top 15 teams from the State. Both teams then started tournament pool play that day.
11/12 Pool Play Results
The Niles FOP 11/12 All-Stars started its pool play games against Petoskey Little League.
Starting pitcher was Montrell Merritt for FOP. Merritt pitched an outstanding game - striking out nine batters and only allowing four hits throughout the game.
It was a great defensive battle, but the All-Stars came up short losing to Petoskey 2-1. Nick Lucero led FOP offensively.
On Sunday, the All-Stars continued pool play with a game against Taylor Northwest Little League.
Justin Hughes went the distance on the mound for FOP. Taylor's offense proved to be too powerful for the FOP All-Stars and resulted in a 12-2 lost for FOP.
Niles was led offensively by Merritt, Shawn Dudka and Rashaad Harris.
Monday night, FOP completed pool play with a game against South Portage.
Evan Zimmerman was starting pitcher for Niles, completing three innings with Nick Lucero coming in for relief.
The game was a slugfest and ended up tied 6-6 at the end of the sixth inning.
Unfortunately, the FOP team ran out of steam and ended up losing 12-9 in extra innings.
Niles was led offensively by Merritt, Josh Clark, Lucero, Taylor Purucker, Seth Purucker, Harris, Jay Williams and Jesse Wilson.
9/10 Game Results
The Niles FOP 9/10 All-Star team started its pool play with a game against St. Clair on Saturday afternoon.
Starting pitcher for the All-Stars was Derek Scott. Niles' offense and defense came up missing during the first game as it suffered a 12-2 loss in four innings.
The team continued pool play on Sunday against Menominee Little League.
Starting pitcher for FOP was Kevin Hatcher with Geordan Griffin, James Krause and Ethan Zimmerman coming in for relief.
Niles' offense came out strong and continued throughout the game.
Its defense was strong as well, completing a double play and shutting down the Menominee offense several times.
FOP took an 11-7 win with four of the seven runs made by Menominee coming from a grandslam home run allowed in the fourth inning.
The All-Stars were led offensively by Zimmerman with three singles, Connor Glick with a double and a single, Alex Wright with a double, Maris Marazita and Scott with two singles each and Griffin, Kevin Hatcher and Krause each with a single.
The team completed its pool play with a game Monday afternoon against Birmingham Little League.
This game proved to be a great defensive battle between both teams.
Zimmerman was the starting pitcher for FOP allowing only three hits throughout the game and striking out nine batters.
FOP's offense started out strong with Marazita getting on base with a bunt and Zimmerman scoring Marazita with a solid double.
Zimmerman had another RBI in the third inning scoring another run for a 2-0 edge over Birmingham.
The game stayed this way until the top of the sixth inning when Birmingham had a walk and two hits, which tied the score 2-2.
The All-Stars came out strong in the bottom of the sixth with Scott getting on base with a single, Glick adding another single to get on base and Krause hitting a single to score Scott with the winning run.
The Niles FOP team ended pool play 2-1 and advanced to the final eight teams in the state tournament.
The team started the single elimination round with a game Tuesday night against Grosse Pointe Woods.
Starting pitcher for Niles was Hatcher with Griffin coming in for relief.
The All-Stars struggled at the plate but had a good defensive showing completing a nice double play and a couple other outstanding defensive plays to stop the Grosse Pointe offense.
Grosse Pointe was up 6-1 going into the bottom of the sixth inning.
Niles' offense held strong and scored two runs to make the score to 6-3.
FOP tried to rally and had bases loaded, but came up short with a pop out to end the game.
The 9/10 year-old All-Stars ended up finishing sixth in the State of Michigan.