All-Star play to begin Saturday at Albany
By Sam Waller
Albany Little League will host one of three brackets for the Big Country Machine Pitch Classic on Saturday, June 11 at the Little League complex.
Albany will play Cisco at 9:00 a.m., with Clyde and Haskell meeting in the other first-round game. The double-elimination event for 8- and 9-year-olds will conclude Saturday afternoon.
Other brackets are being played at Tuscola and Abilene. The three bracket winners and a wild card qualifier advance to a championship tournament on Monday, June 13 at Abilene’s Dixie Little League complex.
Bracket winners will be seeded based on runs allowed per inning. The wild card team, which will be the second-place finisher with the lowest runs allowed per inning, will be seeded fourth.
Members of the Albany team are Eli Sutton, Hudson Ceder, Wyatt Brown, Tanner Swert, Shelton Carlile, Howdy Hefner, Jason Shack, Tanner Howe, Kingston Balliew, and Jonathan Key.
All-Star Teams
All Star teams for Major and Minor age divisions have been announced. Albany teams will begin competing later this month.
The Majors All-Stars are Tank Johnson, Slayton Parsons, Blake Britting, Lyle Wheeler, Ace Townson, Levi Murphy, Jakobi Roberson, McCoy Vaughn, Sam Tidwell, and Trevor Bellah. Tony Wheeler will serve as coach.
The Minors All-Star roster consists of Patton Smith, Tusiani Togia, Cooper Roysdon, Paxton Slaughter, Aaron Waddell, John Mark Johnson, Cinch Holson, Sami Holson, Ryder Anderson, Eli Sutton, Wyatt Brown, Grayson Tidwell, Matthew Key, and Hudson Ceder. The team will be coached by Steven Sutton.
Albany’s Intermediate team will combine with Breckenridge to compete in that age group’s tournament. Albany will not have a Junior team.
District Tournament
Albany teams completed play in the District 5 Tournament last week with teams in three age divisions seeing action.
In the Majors age group, the Indians reached the County racket final before losing 26-8 to the Merkel Willies on Tuesday, May 31 at Merkel. The Indians had won three games in three days before the loss. The Willies lost to City bracket winner Wylie Cardinals in the district championship game.
In the Intermediate tournament, Albany defeated Winters 9-8 on Wednesday, June 1 at Abilene Southern before falling 5-2 to Wylie Gold on Thursday, June 2, at Wylie. Wylie Gold then defeated Wylie White in the championship game.
In the Junior age division, Albany lost 10-9 to the Abilene Southern Cardinals on Wednesday, June 1 at Albany. Hamlin defeated the Abilene Northern Bearcats for the district championship.
