ELIZABETHTOWN — Six times, they faced elimination. Six times, they won.
For the first time since 1982, a Dixie Youth Baseball team from Elizabethtown is state champion. The team for ages 9 and 10, commonly known as Minors, ruled the 16-team double-elimination tournament by winning seven times in as many days, the last six consecutively.
Elizabethtown will now head to Ruston, Louisiana, for the World Series. Opening ceremonies are Aug. 2, and the double-elimination event runs through Aug. 8.
“I’m trying just to figure out how the heck it happened,” head coach Kyle Bostic said Friday night, just a few hours after a rousing celebration. “I’ve never seen 12 little boys play with that much heart, and compete, and have fun.”
The last team from Elizabethtown to win a Dixie state title was a group of 11- and 12-year-olds, who prevailed in Kenansville. Bostic saw that champion, watching one of his cousins play.
Elizabethtown won its opener July 5, lost the next day, then won six straight. On Friday, needing to beat Stanley twice, they did just that — by identical 6-4 scores.
Seven days, eight games and seven wins.
While the team got the weekend off, Bostic began the task of travel arrangements and fundraising ideas.
”We did a big car wash in town a couple of weeks ago to pay for state,” said the youth baseball coach of about 25 years. “A lot of folks are having to take time off for work. We raised $1,800 or $2,000 for it. We were trying not to beg and borrow from the same businesses. The same ones always get hit.
“We’re going to set up some kind of something like a GoFundMe page. I’ve coached for about 25 years, and a lot of those kids are still around. We’ll do donations like that. We’ll have a fundraiser or two. We’ve had folks call today. I’m trying to figure out what it’s going to cost.”
Hurricane Barry came ashore Saturday, and moved north through Louisiana on Sunday. Ruston is in the northern part of the state, the largest city in what is known as the eastern Arkansas-Louisiana-Texas part of the country, or ArkLaTex.
The 16-team bracket of the state tournament shows the long road a trip into the losers bracket provides. Elizabethtown played each day of the tournament, including twice on Friday.
State champion baseball players paraded through Elizabethtown late Friday. Their journey’s next stop is Ruston, Louisiana, for the World Series.