Dixie League Teams Go To World Series

On Tuesday, the local Spring Hill Dixie Youth Baseball League 6u and 12u squads punched their ticket to the World Series. They will be picking up their bats and making the trek to compete in the South Carolina-based tournament later this week. To qualify for the exhibition on July 19, the team consisting of 12 kids between the ages of 4 and 6 had to overcome the district and state tourneys.

First up were districts, where a quartet of matchups ensued. They proceeded to go 3-1 while besting Groveland for the district title after falling earlier that same day. After advancing to states, the 6u crew out of Anderson Snow Park ran roughshod over their competition in North Lakeland. Coach Shawn Vercellona and company run-ruled nearly every team they played in the 9-team bracket en route to a 5-0 record and title at states.

“I have had a lot of these kids all season long on my T-ball team,” Coach Vercellona said. “They all work really hard. Got a great group of kids that play a lot of defensive baseball at six years old, which is probably the biggest part of it. We got guys that are catching and throwing the ball around pretty good for six years old, and I think that is what separates us from the rest. We have a defensively strong team. They all hit really well. We are all excited to go to this.”

The local Diamond League team plays coach pitch for four-, five-, and six-year-olds. As the All-Stars format is T-ball-only for that age group, the team only had “two and a half to three weeks to learn a completely different game basically” for their postseason matchups, the league’s President Jennifer Higgins said.

They then practiced five nights a week for roughly an hour and a half to pick up the different style. This allowed them to go to the state tournament in North Lakeland last weekend. Since district winners and runners-up can attend, teams like Desoto and even Groveland made appearances. This was Spring Hill Dixie’s first T-ball state championship.

With the World Series in a matter of days, they will now be returning to playing coach-pitch in this tournament, though the coach will be pitching from a standing position as opposed to kneeling. They will have had only a total of nine days “to learn new rules again.” The team has done an excellent job of gelling despite pulling players from other teams just for the postseason. As their coach put it, they are a “great group of kids and listen very well.”

Some of the players who contributed to the team’s success include Noah Hill and Chris Suarez. Hill joined the league when he was just four years old and has been participating since. Like many players on the team, he has brought much to his squad in the way of production. He even hit a cycle one of the matchups during states. The six-year-old loves baseball, his grandfather Don Becker noted, and he looks to continue playing the sport moving forward.

“He is very passionate about it,” said Becker. “He is already still playing. This was just an honor. This was his third time he has been in the all-stars form […] He’s just a typical little boy. He is just always on the go, and he has a passion for baseball […] I don’t want to just say it was Noah. There were 12 kids on there and all 12 won the districts and the states. They really played hard.”
Suarez was also pivotal during these postseason games. Just during the district tournament, he would launch six baseballs over the fence. “He was a pretty big impact at districts,” his coach said. It was not just those two, though. The entire team had to work on an off the field just to have the opportunity to reach the World Series. They raised money by holding fundraisers at places like Glory Days and the Cook Shack to earn the necessary funds to get there.

Coach Vercellona’s wife, Mary, serves as the manager of the “O” Zone division (12u) that also won states and will be taking her all-star team to the World Series. Though Shawn runs practices for both teams, Mary manages the 12u team. According to the 6u coach, Mary does all of the “footprint work” for the two teams. She invests a great deal of time and effort into the players while operating other aspects such as fundraising.

“My wife has stepped up and managed, and honestly, the truth, I couldn’t do it without my wife,” Coach Vercellona said. “It is a family thing that we have been involved in for forever now. We have older kids and have been out there the whole time with our boys teaching them baseball, and this is the first time my wife has stepped up to manage and she has taken the team to the world series.”
Stay tuned as the Hernando Sun will continue to cover the successes of the youth baseball and softball squads around the county.

12u Players: K. Vercellona 17; A. Jaikaran 72; C. Fernandez 9; Jacob Tarnowski 99; Joshua Tarnowski 1; J. Bates 2; J. Delape 3; K. Basso 00; K. Stocker 13; L. Coen 11; A. Alley 5; J. Blomeling 23

6u Players: M. Vercellona 11; J. Nobisso 7; L. Sousa 4; D. Torres 1; A. Thompson 8; B. Bastien 24; C. Suarez 10; G. Mormando 13; J. DeFranco 9; M. Scumaci 23; N. Hill 5; T. Booker 22