Gravette early favorite in Senior Babe Ruth league
Posted on Sunday, May 18, 2008
BENTONVILLE - The Northwest Arkansas Senior Babe Ruth season starts today and there is already a favorite among the 14 teams.
League president Scott Burnett said the talk among coaches during the last two weeks has been about Gravette, which returns nearly every starter from a year ago and just recently went to the Class 4 A State Tournament during the high school season.
"The first team you look at is probably Gravette because Gravette has everybody back," Burnett said. "They ended up being a half-game behind the Bentonville Wallabies last year, which was the tougher of the two divisions.
"Gravette, for a lot of the kids, this will be their third year."
Gravette will compete in the West Division along with six other teams: Bentonville, Gentry Serfco Pests, Pea Ridge Community First, Prairie Grove, Rogers Backyard Burger and Springdale Tyson.
Boone County (Bergman / Harrison ), Carroll County (Berryville / Green Forest ), Elkins, Huntsville, Rogers Zero Mountain, State Farm Saints (Shiloh Christian ) and West Fork make up the seven teams in the East Division.
Four of the 14 teams in the league are new: Elkins, Prairie Grove, Gentry Serfco Pests and State Farm Saints.
Gravette returns All-Star players from a year ago in Ethan McKinzie, Dillon Pruitt, Travis Eden and Quentin Eden.
McKinzie, a hard-throwing righthander, just completed his junior season at Gravette and went 8-3. The Lions were eliminated by Central Arkansas Christian in the first round of the Class 4 A State Tournament.
"Anytime you have a player of Ethan's quality and caliber in the league, he's going to help a team regardless," Burnett said. "They've got a lot of depth.
"We would expect Gravette to be pretty good. The rest of the teams … you just never know. Pea Ridge will have lost four top players that will either play legion or play in our league. Their tradition and having all their coaches definitely helps them."
Left-hander Travis Parsons, who went 7-0 during the regular season for Pea Ridge Balckhawks, will not play with Community First this year but is on the Rogers Zero Mountain roster.
The reason is, Burnett said, Community First likes to develop some of Pea Ridge's younger players during SBR season and let older players, like Parsons, play on another roster. Burnett said Carroll County, Boone County and the team he coaches, Springdale Tyson, are expected to be among the better teams in the league. "We've got 11 seniors on the team," Burnett said of Springdale Tyson. "We've got the most experienced team in the league."
• • • The season is starting a full playing date earlier than last year, Burnett said, partly because the North Arkansas State Tournament is going to be on Fourth of July weekend. Last year, it was the weekend after. "That crunches our availability a little bit," Burnett said.
• • • The Arkansas Activities Association has implemented a two-week dead period from June 15-28 which prevents high school coaches in any sport from coaching players. The rule also prevents athletics, including Senior Babe Ruth baseball, from being played in facilities owned by the schools. Burnett said several games have been moved to other fields and replacement coaches for some teams have been found to accommodate this rule.
• • • Doubleheaders will usually be played on a Wednesday-Sunday schedule this summer, each six-inning game having a time limit of 1 hour, 45 minutes. This Saturday, however, five doubleheaders have been scheduled, Burnett said, to work around football and graduations.
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