Hats are off to our 13-year-old Babe Ruth Baseball team

EDITORIAL

By Ruth Luse
   It was a first for Hopewell Valley — the Hopewell 13-year-old Babe Ruth Baseball team’s trip to the Babe Ruth 13-year-old World Series tourney held in Virginia.
   How did they get there and excite all of us Valley baseball fans so much?
   Briefly, their journey began in earnest on June 30 with a 20-1 victory over Trenton in the District One 13-year-old tournament. The boys went on to win the next 14 games. With the World Series in sight, they won the District One championship, the Southern New Jersey State championship, and the Middle Atlantic Regional Championship, claiming the regional title for the first time on Aug. 7 after reaching the regional tournament the past four years. Prior to winning the regional title, Hopewell’s best finish had been a second place in the Cal Ripken Regional Tournament as a 10-year-old team.
   With that Aug. 7 win, the boys advanced to the World Series to take on winners from eight other regional tournaments and the host team from Loudoun County, Va. They left the Valley by bus from Central High on Aug. 15, spirits high. Many well-wishers were there to send them off.
   In Virginia, they won two games in "pool play," but lost in the single-elimination round of World Series play. When all was said and done, Hopewell Valley’s team finished in the top six of all the 13-year-old Babe Ruth Baseball teams.
   What a victory for these young men: Tim Andrews, Brooks Backinoff, Drew Crivelli, John Croak, Keith Devlin, Nick Gies, Don Giordano, Mike Hartel, Evan Miller, Jason Patnick, Alex Rhoads and Dylan Yuska, and their manager, Jim Patnick and assistant coaches, Craig Miller and Tom Croak. While they did not become world champs, they succeeded in doing something no other Valley team, in memory, has done. They took Hopewell Valley, and themselves, almost to the very top. They made us very proud. Over the years, we have had reason to rejoice with several teams — including quite a few Central High squads (boys and girls, alike) that played a variety of sports, not just baseball.
   But teams like this Babe Ruth squad are special because they are not school-based teams. Teams like this one are the result of hard work — on the part of boys dedicated enough to devote their spare vacation time to play, by the men who volunteer their time to work and worry with the team, and by parents, who, in this case, basically gave up an entire summer — with great joy, we imagine — to watch their offspring rise to the top.
   Hats off to all involved! And, we hope these talented young men show up at Central High School where they surely would be welcome additions to future HoVal baseball squads.