Warsaw’s Little League All-Stars are ready for the Indiana state tournament in Jasper beginning Saturday. The team won the District 14 tournament in Cleveland Township near Granger. The district included teams from Elkhart, Bristol, Baugo, Middlebury, Mishawaka and Osolo. In the district tournament Warsaw beat Baugo, Goshen and Middlebury in pool play, then defeated Bristol in the semifinals before winning a rematch with Goshen in the final. In the 15-team state tournament Warsaw begins pool play with a game against host Jasper at noon Saturday, followed by a game at 4 p.m. Sunday with Brownsburg. Warsaw will wrap up pool play at 4 p.m. Monday against Wabash, the District 9 champs. The top four teams in each of the two pools advance to quarterfinal action Tuesday, with the semifinals on Wednesday. The championship game is at 11 a.m. July 23. The winner advances to the Great Lakes Regional, and the regional champion goes on to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa. Warsaw manager Ryan Weaver said his team features a lot of versatility among its players with a deep pitching staff. “We’re fortunate that we’ve got quite a few young men who have played in Warsaw Little League quite a few years, and they’ve played with the CCAC travel organization as well, so they have experience and solid fundamental baseball skills in fielding and hitting as well as pitching,” he said. “So we have quite a deep pitching staff as well as kids who hit the ball really well. We’ve hit quite a few home runs this past season. It helped us win district and we’re feeling pretty confident about what we can do at state. “We only have three or four players that don’t pitch, and in district we didn’t use our best pitcher. So if someone is having a bad day, we have plenty of other pitchers to go with. We’re solid enough fundamentally that just abut any kid can play any position on the field. Offensively, the team features extra-base power, and enough speed to grind out a single run when necessary. “We won district with good pitching, good defense and everybody hitting the ball pretty well. We have five players that hit multiple home runs during the regular season, and we have a couple more who have hit home runs before,” Weaver said. “So we have good power, but we also have good speed and we’ll play good fundamental baseball on offense.” Team members are Anthony Foust, Luke Adamiec, Austin Slone, Lukas Maier, Micah Colbert, Zack Weaver, Jordan Diaz, Nicholas Luna, Joe Springer, Jacob Denzer, Kevin Cruz, Brock Poe, Lucas Wrenn and Caden Graham. Coaches are Nate Maier and Rob Springer.
