Published: July 22, 2008 10:44 pm            

Southside braces for Ohio Valley invasion

Twenty teams from six states begin play here Friday

The Southside Youth Baseball League is ready to roll out the red carpet this week for teams from Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia.

Southside is hosting two Cal Ripken Ohio Valley Regional tournaments, which feature 10 teams apiece. The 11-year-old tourney will take place on the major league diamond and the 10-year-old tourney will be played at the same time on the minor league diamond. Opening ceremonies are Thursday and play begins at noon on Friday and continues through Tuesday.

“We’re having a welcoming picnic at 5 o’clock [Thursday] at Rodgers Pavilion, and then we’ll line all 20 teams up and we’re going to parade down to the ballpark and proceed with opening ceremonies at about 7:30,” tournament director Scott Branch said.

“We hope Kokomo comes out and supports the kids. We’re going to have a lot of good food, a lot of good fun and obviously a lot of good baseball.”

The OVR tournaments bring together state champions. The 10-year-old tournament winner advances to the Cal Ripken World Series in Abbeville, La. The 11-year-old tournament concludes at the regional level.

Southside, as the host league, receives automatic spots in the double-elimination tournaments. The Southside squads will open against Michigan champions — Rob Baker’s 11-year-old team at 5 p.m. Friday and Jeremy Miller’s 10-year-old team at 7 p.m. Friday.

The Southside-Michigan winners will advance to play the Northern Indiana champions — Logansport in the 11-year-old tourney and Harrison Township in the 10-year-old tourney.

Southern Indiana champions will play against Eastern Kentucky champions in the noon openers on Friday.

Branch said Southside is ready for the challenge of hosting two tournaments at the same time.

“We’ve done a lot of work on the fields,” he said. “We’ve been planning this for a little over a year and a half. It’s a lot of hard work, but fortunately we have a good base of volunteers.

“It’s nice that Southside is the first Cal Ripken league in Kokomo to be able to host a regional,” Branch added. “It’s nice for all of Howard County too. The economics of bringing in [18] teams from six states — obviously the hotels and restaurants are going to like it. We’re pretty excited about this opportunity.”

        

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