BETHLEHEM — The players on the 10-and-under Tri-Village baseball team — 12 boys and a girl — set their own goals.

This year, the kids reached their goal: to play in the Cal Ripken World Series. It will be held from Aug. 7 to 17 in Vincennes, Indiana.

“Last year, we were two games away from qualifying for the World Series,” said Head Coach Bryan Yusko.

The team had won the district and state titles but fell short in regionals.

“It wasn’t a goal we set as coaches,” said Yusko. “It was, ‘Hey, what do you guys want to do? Each year, we ask what they want to accomplish … And that was the first thing they said.”

Yusko and the three volunteers who work with him — Jeremy McCann, third-base coach; Andy Dwyer, first-base coach; and Matt Matt Elfeldt, pitching coach — made it clear to their players that it would take work to reach their goal.

“We said, ‘Hey, if you guys want to win, you know you have to put in the time and the effort — and they really have …. They wanted to win those two more games and qualify for the World Series — and they did it.”

The team swept the district, state, and regional championships.

The clincher was on July 20 in Cherry Hill, New Jersey where the Tri-Village 10-year-olds beat a team from Unionville, Pennsylvania, 7 to 1.

The Bethlehem team outscored opponents throughout the regionals, 158-31, Yusko said, adding the team is 14-2 so far during its All-Star run.

Last year, he said, the team outscored its opponents during its All-Star run, 144-40. The then-9-year-olds were 13-2 and just two games away from qualifying for the World Series.

Asked why his team was so dominant, Yusko said, “The players. They’re amazing. They work hard. They want to win. They want to learn the game. They’re constant.”

The 13 players on the roster are: Hunter Dwyer, Nate Elfeldt, Carter Frueh, Lucas Kebea, Brayden McCann, Larkin McClain, Oakley Obernesser, Colton Petrone, Burke Rhinemiller, Giulianna Robinson, Riley Stewart, River Strauss, and Graham Yusko.

“We’re constantly moving forward, teaching the game at a higher level and we’re just more advanced than the other teams because of how far we’re able to teach them and for them to retain all the information and knowledge.”

Yusko himself grew up playing baseball in Kingston, where he was on the high school team until he moved to in the 10th grade and finished his high school career at Coxackie-Athens.

It was just natural, he said, to teach the sport to his two sons, Stosh, who is 12, and Graham, who is 10. Yusko spoke to The Enterprise from Cooperstown, home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, where Stosh was participating in its Dreams Park for 12-year-olds.

Historic first

Going to the Cal Ripken World Series is a first for the Tri-Village League, which was formed in the 1950s, Yusko said.

Most people, he noted, have heard of the not-for-profit Little League because its World Series has been televised since 1953. Little League was formed in the 1930s in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania and has grown to include teams across the country and around the world, but has seen declining numbers in recent years.

“We were always Little League and two years ago, we moved to Cal Ripken," said Yusko. 

The predominant reason for the switch, he said, is because Cal Ripken increases the field size as players age. “So it gradually gets a little bit bigger as the kids get older. So when they get to the big field at 13 years old, that’s when you play Major League distance,” Yusko said.

It is also better for players “melding into our travel program,” said Yusko, “where the kids at that age are already playing at that distance.”

He added, “A lot of the teams in our area have switched over to Cal Ripken so there’s really not much to Little League anymore.” The team of 10-year-olds that recently won the state Little League championship, Yusko said, did not face much competition.

“Like a family”

For Patty Kebea, whose 10-year-old son, Lucas, is on the Tri-Village team, the team feels like a second family.

“He’s been with the team since he was 7,” she said. “He plays every position … He fills in as shortstop, pitcher, third base; he plays outfield.”

While Lucas is not the team’s strongest player, his mother said, “He’s the biggest talker on the team. He gets them all amped up.”

Lucas has loved the sport since he started playing T-ball at age 5. “He loves running around,” said Kebea. “He loves the team aspect of it, the sportsmanship. Even if you don’t play in a game and you win states, it’s a team thing — and they all just love each other. They’re all like siblings, this whole group.”

Kebea said of the one girl on the team, Giulianna Robinson, “She’s just one of the kids. It doesn’t matter that she’s a girl and they’re boys. They just all get along really, really well and it’s great.”

She went on about the remarkable support for the team, “Every family is involved from parent to siblings to grandparents to friends to families — it’s like we’re all a big community together.”

The larger community has been supportive, too. A GoFundMe page was set up with a goal of raising $11,000 and, as of July 28, close to $10,400 had been contributed.

“We weren’t expecting this much,” said Kebea. “Any little bit is just to try to help with the cost of food and travel that we have to do. We have parents driving; we have parents flying; we have hotel rooms that we had to book for all 10 days.”

Both of Kebea’s sons play baseball. Jack, who is 14, is on a travel team.

“GameChanger is our life,” said Kebea, referring to the mobile app that provides scorekeeping, stats, and video streaming.

When her work as operations specialist for the New York Association of Towns keeps her from one of her sons’ games, Kebea said, “I can watch the game on GameChanger.”

The app also helps with managing her schedule as she gets her sons to games. “I’m their chauffeur,” she said.

Although Jack’s team never made it to the World Series, Kebea said, Jack is very supportive of his brother and his team.

“He was with my parents when they won the regionals,” she said of Jack, “and he was apparently screaming at the TV, cheering really loudly when they saw it live that they had won.”

Kebea said of Lucas’s team going to the World Series, “They are so deserving and they have the best coaches in the entire world. They volunteer their time. They don’t get paid for this. And they put in the work with our kids and they love our kids, like they’re their own. So it’s amazing and we really are like a family, which is really cool.”

Yusko said that he and the other coaches are not just teaching baseball.

“It’s not all about baseball,” he said. “It’s about teaching them life, too …. Lessons like you have to work hard to accomplish things. You set goals and you work to achieve them, things like that.”

Yusko said that he and his fellow coaches plan to stick with the team till the players age out of the Cal Ripken program at 12.

Asked if he could speculate on what the team’s goal might be next year, Yusko said, “It might be, if we don’t win it this year, winning the World Series next year, that might be their goal ….

“If we win it all, I have no idea.”