The East Pembroke Fire Department along with the Corfu Fire Department gave an end of season escort to the 10 and under Cal Ripken East League All Stars from the Pembroke Youth Association on Saturday night after their championship game against Alexander which was played in Attica.
The team almost made a come back from a 5-0 deficit, scoring 3 runs in the last inning, but came up just short 5-3. The Alexander U10 All Star team was crowned the East Division Champions and will go on to play in States.
Pembroke had a great season with both 10 and under teams going 10-0 during the regular season.
During last weekend’s tournament in Perry, one Pembroke team came in first place and the other came in third out of 30 teams. They even had to faceoff against each other for the first time.
“I’ve got to give a lot of props to Coach Ball on this, he does not only everything for the kids here, but he does a lot of different leagues and pick up leagues for these boys, they put in a lot of time, a lot of heart and effort,” says Coach Dan Lang.
The Pembroke U10 teams have been around since 2016 and this year have 29 kids playing baseball. Coach Jason Ball says he gets the kids ready for the season beginning in the Fall and he says that makes a big difference.
“We believe we work harder than anybody out there with these kids,” says Coach Ball.
“What an amazing group in this class and they just play big, it shows on the field. Both teams were undefeated this year, it shows what we are doing with the kids.”
Ball says they have even started a travel league to help get the kids ready for tournament play.
“We got a lot of respect in the league now from a lot of different towns that know how much we are putting into our program now.”
Coaches are Dan Lang, Jason Ball, Troy Williams, Lee Hartz, Joe Santini, Biggs Johnson, Jeff Abbatiello and Chris Ball.