By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
It was a perfect way to end the summer on the baseball field. On Monday afternoon, the West Windsor Little League hosted the 12-year-old all-stars from the Uganda Little League for an exhibition baseball game. The team from Uganda arrived after spending the past week in Williamsport, Pa. for the Little League World Series, where they represented as the Europe-Africa champions.
The Uganda team has a connection to the Trenton Thunder through part-owner Dick Stanley, who helped bring baseball to Uganda over a decade ago. The team qualified for the Little League World Series in 2012 and made a stop in West Windsor. With the team heading to Williamsport again this year, another date with the WWLL was arranged. The 2012 game was rained out, but the weather cooperated this time around.
“We have a good relationship with the Thunder and because of the last time not working out with the raining, Will Smith from the Thunder called and said, ‘let’s try to do it again,’” West Windsor Little League president Ellen Vogt said. “So we threw it together and decided we would mix the teams up and make it more of a community thing and let the kids just play and not worry who wins.”
The players enjoyed lunch together and played for a couple hours on Monday before heading to the Trenton Thunder game on Monday night. The Uganda team stayed in Williamsport through Sunday before arriving in Mercer County. They were scheduled to play Chambersburg Little League on Tuesday before heading home.
“Dick Stanley organized so much of it with the Thunder,” Vogt said. “I know they were going to give the team a behind the scenes tour of what it like to get prepared for a game as a professional player.”
“For our kids it is a good way to end the summer. It gives the kids one last chance to play on the Little League field and what a great way to end it.”
The West Windsor players consisted of Cole Parsons, Nicholas Liao, Aaron Kats, Ved Chugh, Matthew Thibault, Matthew Dorfman, Ishaan Pandya, James Vinson, Nate Millinger, Eli Foster, Morgan Mayer, Joseph Lilleywhite and Parker Nigro. The Uganda players were Felix Canpara, Joshua Muwanguzi, Hussein Kato, Constantine Mubiru, Nicholas Alumai, Jovan Edaku, Francis Alemo, Julius Kazibwe, Joshua Olara, Hassan Wasswa and Pius Echoni.
The staff at WWLL did an excellent job putting things together to prepare for the game at RJ Ward Field, which drew a big crowd to help close out the summer.
