Victorious Warriors went to Dreams Park
COOPERSTOWN-BOUND: (front row, left to right) Sam Estow, Taran Andersen, Alex Chung, Kai Rosellen and Luca Perez. Back row, left to right: Coach Ethan Higuera, Wolfgang Rinderknecht, Kiran Rubin, Milo Hurwitz, Parker Bernstein, Coach Adam Cole-Kelly, Charlie Cole-Kelly, Rocco Higuera, Hugo Bright, Head Coach Kris Davis, Aidan Lee and Coach Ben Russell.
The best of our local 12-year-old Wilshire Warriors headed to Dreams Park Cooperstown in New York on June 18 to participate in a baseball summer camp where close to 100 teams from all over the U.S. attend per week. Wilshire Warriors is a recreational community baseball club based at Pan Pacific Park.
Dreams Park was constructed in 1996. There are 22 grass playing fields and 104 barracks on the 165-acre Baseball Village. The fields have lights, so the boys play night games, too. Cooperstown is a family destination, with parents and siblings encouraged to attend games when not on Otsego Lake or touring the Baseball Hall of Fame. The experience for the players mirrors big league ball as much as possible.
Prior to Cooperstown, these Wilshire Warriors 12U Blue Team players, some who have been playing together since they were 7, won three local tournaments in a row, including the prestigious Cheviot Hills Memorial Day Tournament, an event played over a four-day span. It was quite a dramatic run.
“I couldn’t be more proud of this team. They’ve put in countless hours of hard work together over the past several seasons under the guidance of our amazing coach, Kris Davis. And it’s been incredibly rewarding to see all their hard work yield such great results on the field,” Team Manager Adam Cole-Kelly told us.
The Warriors won their semifinal game on Sunday evening 3-2 in extra innings to progress to a finals rematch with rival Palisades, who had defeated them the previous four years. The next day, on Memorial Day, the Warriors finally broke through and beat Palisades 3-2 for the championship.
By Jim Kailin
Category: People
