YAO Baseball will represent Bermuda at the New England Region Baseball Tournament, the Bermuda Team will consist of Mateo Donawa, Christopher Ricca, Mateo Rodriguez, Andrew Daly, Dylan Sommerville, Joshua Allen, Ben Cook, Joey Dougherty, Corey Simas, and Max Betetto, while the coaches are Andrew Cook, Chris Dougherty, Mike Daly and Donovan Stubbs.
This is the fourth year in a row that Bermuda has sent a team abroad, and the second year that Youth Athletic Organization (YAO) has been affiliated with Babe Ruth and competed in the US.
This year YAO will be playing in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and competing in the New England Region against teams from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Rhode Island.
The YAO Baseball team will come up against very strong teams, that have won county, district and state tournaments to advance to this tournament.
The YAO team was selected in mid-June, based on play through the season and based on an assessment process conducted by the Youth Athletic Organization (YAO)
The team have been training 4 days per week since the last week of June and are well prepared for the event, although a bit younger than previous travel teams.
In addition to the named coaches, Derek Anderson has been quite involved in preparing the team. Corey Simas and Joey Dougherty are two players that are returning from last year’s team that traveled to Florida.
On Friday evening the Bermuda team will take part in the opening ceremonies with a skills competition, this will be followed by their first game is Saturday and Second will be Monday. If Bermuda win, they will play again on Tuesday. The tournament is double elimination.
