Cane's Southwest Elite 9U team gets Youth World ring
With smiles on their faces and rings overwhelming young hands, the members of Cane’s Southwest Elite 9U baseball team want everyone to know they are world class athletes.
The team recently traveled to a Youth World Series event held at the Scrapyard Sports Complex in Conroe, a sports facility in the Houston area where they competed against teams from across the state and Louisiana, bringing home a championship to San Marcos.
Baseball for all ages and categories is a year-round activity in Central Texas for many families, but the summer weeks offer prime opportunities to reach for a ring outside of the comfort zone of teams and organizations.
For example the Youth World Series, part of larger organization called Athletx Sports Group founded in 2012 and which is headquartered in Louisville, is sponsoring similar Youth World Series events this season in Daytona Beach, Florida; Ocean City, Maryland; Asheville, North Carolina; Cincinnati, Ohio; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; and Reno-Tahoe, Nevada. This puts the Cane’s team in some rather exclusive company.
With their Head Coach Jay Moya, and coaches Jeff Contreras and Eric Batch listening, three young ballplayers, with ages ranging from nine to 10, spoke about what it meant to them to be World Series champions this summer.
For Greyson Contreras, Isaiah Vasquez and Jaylon Moya, winning was actually “kind of easy,” as each said they had a feeling they were going to play well.
For Coach Moya, he said he has always “loved baseball,” and got into coaching “at a good, young age.”
“I started doing it in my young 20s and stayed with it,” he said. “I coached my kids.”
He said that now that his children are older, he is ready to let them receive additional coaching from others, and watch them mature in the game. Moya said the decision to take the team to the Houston championship was made early in the season.
“We played against teams from Texas and Louisiana,” Moya said, including Bayou Boys, Meraux, Louisiana; Houston Xtreme Baseball; LTG Stars 9U from Marrero, Louisiana; and TD Edge 9U from Katy, Texas.
The coach noted that at this time of year, teams “playing their best ball.” “Basically we did see some good teams lose early,” he said, adding that their championship rings came as they defeated the Texas Sun Devils 9U Davila from Schertz, near San Antonio. “It was one of our toughest competitions,” he said. “Lo and behold, we won.”
The three teammates said they enjoyed celebrating their win at a place called the Home Run Dugout in Katy that has food and an indoor batting cage, a favorite for these potentially, future major leaguers.
This style of baseball is designed to use what the organization calls the “Baseball Youth DivLevel classification system,” where teams are encouraged to play against those with similar qualifications and of course, age groups The Athletx Sports Group brands represent in excess of 600 team-based and individual player events across the nation, featuring over 15,000 teams, 194,000 players, 38,000 coaches and 371,000 spectators. The Youth World Series started in 2020.
Greyson said what he likes about the game is “running the bases,” playing outfield and second base.
For Jaylon and Isaiah, the prospect of making new friends was both easy and hard at times.“My favorite moment was when we won it and I got to celebrate with my teammates,” Greyson said. “ I was happy to see us win because of how much work we put in.”
Members of the winning team are: Greyson Contreras, Lone Robledo, River Hill, William Batch, Isaiah Vasquez, Jake Weathers, Keegan Romero, Braxston Schneider, Jaylon Moya, Teddy Conrad, Colton Wimberley and Jovan Rodriguez.
The Cane’s organization with which these team is affiliated has seasonal opportunities, and for this season, the boys were on the field from mid-February through June, culminating in their World Series win.
Canes Southwest includes teams in Austin, Leander, Lakeway, Dripping Springs, San Antonio, Dallas and Longview. Canes Southwest is a member of the larger Canes Baseball Organization that represents teams playing in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.
For those interested, the Cane’s Fall 2023 Youth Tryouts will encompass Buda, Kyle, San Marcos and New Braunfels. Students wishing to register for a tryout can go to https://www.canessouthwest. com/southyouthtryouts. The scope of the program according to organizers is to encourage player development, above all else.
According to the website, the organization focuses “on building better players and better young men through quality training and coaching by professionals that have experience throughout collegiate and professional baseball. Our goal is to help our players reach their desired goals on and off the field.”
The Canes Southwest Baseball Club is “a competitively priced organization that operates year-round. Players pay a season fee or a monthly fee, which varies depending on the number of practices, games, tournaments and special events.
But for now, these teammates will each have a few weeks to enjoy more traditional activities such as swimming or heading to the beach, the coaches said, before school and a Fall baseball season appears on the horizon.
But baseball for these youngsters is more than just a summertime dream come true–it is hard work and a chance to grow in the game. While each of the three said there are certain subjects in school they like–two said math was a favorite–it didn’t need any coaxing for them to offer “I might want to be a ballplayer” as their premier career choice.
The MLB is taking notice of the caliber of players here and in eight years, scouts will no doubt have a field day with some of the Cane’s 2023 World Series team members.
