Several baseball teams from around the state will be in Crossville this week to participate in the 8U Dixie Youth Baseball District Tournament at Centennial Park. The double-elimination event is set to begin June 15.
Coach Daniel Owens and his staff are completing their final practices this week as the Crossville stars are preparing for the talented field waiting for them in the postseason competition.
“If you had asked me last week if I was ready for the tournament, I probably would have told you I need four or five more days of practice,” Owens said. “But now, I think we’re ready to go. We had a really good practice recently. We worked on some complicated defensive schemes and they picked them right up. I think we’re ready.”
Crossville is scheduled to open the tournament against Rockwood at 7 p.m. at Field 3 in Centennial Park. Other first round games will have Tri-County against Kingston, Spring City versus Harriman, and Campbell County against Oakdale. The tournament’s title game is slated for June 20 at 6 p.m.
“I think we’re going to be able to hit the ball and score some runs, so this is going come down to us making plays on defense,” Owens said. “Sometimes, defense is difficult, but we have some really talented kids that are going to do a good job in the infield.
“We’ve been working on that a lot. We know these teams are going to also hit the ball to the outfield, so we’re going to have to be ready for that defensively, too. I am pretty excited about our chances.”
Crossville’s roster includes Neyland Blaylock, Tyvon Dawson, Kade Green, Levi Holloway, Silas Jackson, Peter Juarez, Tanner Massey, Samuel Owens, Landon Pyles, Hudson Shillings, Nolan Thomas and Max Watson. Coach Owens is being helped by Bill Thomas, Dana Wilson and Keshia Thomas.
The U8 tournament is a coach-pitch contest and Owens said that could be a key factor for every team in the tourney. He said the coaches that are pitching must know every player and what type of pitch they’re looking for.
“The coaches that are pitching need to know their hitters extremely well,” Owens said.
“They need to know who likes it fast, who likes it slow. They need to know who likes it up and who likes it down.”
Owens said he doesn’t know a lot about the other teams in the tournament, only the fact they’re going to be talented and well-coached. He said it should be fun to battle such quality competition.
“I think the kids are excited and ready to get out on the field and compete,” Owens said. “I think it would mean so much to the boys if they could get a lot of support at the games from this community. To have people they know from school, church or the neighborhood come out to the games would be outstanding. It would mean so much.”