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Negaunee Minors headed downstate

State tourney play begins on?Saturday

The Negaunee Little League All-Star team won the District 11 baseball tournament title on Friday, July 21, 2017, with a 7-6 victory over Ishpeming at Bernie Rivers Memorial Field in Negaunee. Team members include Ian Engstrom, Ethan Gauthier, Bryce Granato, Braylon Hakkarainen, Ty Jacobson, Aiden Martin, Luke Menard, Tristan Miller, Jace Patron, Morgan Robar, Aiden Steele, Hank Tincknell and Weston Yesney. The team is managed by Jeff Martin with coaches Justin Robar and Jeremy Steele. (Photo courtesy Justin Robar)

NEGAUNEE — Depth has been the secret to success for the all-star team that plays Minors division baseball in Negaunee.

The Miners’ Minors will get a chance to prove how far that can carry them when a dozen of these 8-, 9- and 10-year-old boys start play in the state tournament in the Detroit suburb of Taylor starting Saturday afternoon.

“I’ve been coaching this group since they were in T-ball, so this is about my fifth season with them,” Negaunee manager Jeff Martin said on Thursday, a day before the team was scheduled for the long ride downstate.

“This is my second year with them in Minors. I definitely think we’re deep with our batting and our pitching.

“We only used four pitchers in the (district) tournament and we have another four who can take the mound.”

The Negaunee boys went undefeated in four games in the District 11 tourney held at their home Bernie Rivers Memorial Field, defeating Portage Lake and Keweenaw from the Copper Country along with Marquette and Ishpeming en route to the title.

It was a tough road despite the undefeated record, shown by Negaunee’s 7-6 win over Ishpeming in the title game when the eventual victors didn’t take the lead for good until the fifth inning of their six-inning game.

“One of the big factors we’ve had is struggling to figure out who we’d sub out in the games,” Martin said about Little League rules that require everybody to get plate appearances. “They’ve all been good hitters, and they’ve been consistently hitting.”

Negaunee opens the 16-team double-elimination state tourney against West Portage, a Kalamazoo-area team representing District 2, at 1 p.m. Saturday at Vince Capis Park, home of the Taylor Northeast Little League.

Thirty or 31 games will be required to whittle the field down to one champion, meaning the four fields to be used will be kept busy for a full week.

The first championship game is set for the following Saturday afternoon, Aug. 5, with an “if necessary” contest that would be played Sunday afternoon.

“I definitely think we’ll run into stiffer competition” at states, Martin conceded. “But we’re emphasizing that we won our district. That’s a definite accomplishment not achieved too often. I hope everybody’s really excited for the state tournament.”

One feature that should excite the boys is attending Saturday night’s Detroit Tigers game at Comerica Park.

“With all the players, coaches, parents and grandparents, we got about 40 tickets,” Martin said. “We think we have them more or less in a block so we’ll be near each other.”

Win or lose in their opener, Negaunee will play again on Sunday against District 9’s Grand Rapids Northeastern or District 5’s representative out of Wayne County.

The only other Upper Peninsula team in the tourney is District 10’s Kingsford, which is in the other half of the bracket. The other district that includes U.P. territory, District 13, sent Petoskey from the northern Lower Peninsula.

Negaunee and Kingsford wouldn’t meet in the winner’s bracket until the final game of that part of event, though a consolation bracket meeting would be possible as soon as Monday.

For all teams, two wins in a row to open the event guarantees a day off on Monday, while each subsequent victory makes for another day off right after that until the championship. For example, a Tuesday win gives them Wednesday off and a Thursday win makes Friday an off-day.

However, once teams fall into the consolation bracket, they will be scheduled for one game every day until they’re eliminated or win the state title.

All tournament games are scheduled between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. each day.

“I’ll think they’ll be fine even if we’re playing a game every day,” Martin said.

Unlike older Little League divisions, Minors don’t have a national or international tournament, meaning their seasons end with the state tourney.

Steve Brownlee can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.

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