F.O.P. wins 3rd straight Babe Ruth championship
Jul. 11—F.O.P. had a new-look team this year but the same result: a Logansport Babe Ruth Baseball tournament championship.
F.O.P. won its third straight tournament championship with a 12-1 win over Security Federal last Monday.
F.O.P. coach Dave Smith said the team had just four returnees from last year's championship team. Due to increased numbers coming in from the Cal Ripken league, Logansport added a fourth Babe Ruth team this summer. The league consisted of six teams total with one team each from Lewis Cass and Pioneer.
"Each [Logansport] team could only protect four players from their previous year's roster and then we redrafted," Smith said. "So other than four kids it was a complete remake of where we were the year before. We had eight new kids that weren't on it before including 13 year olds."
F.O.P. went 8-3-1 for the season, including going 6-3-1 in the regular season, finishing tied for second with Atlas Construction, a Logansport team. Security Federal was the regular-season champion.
F.O.P. had four 15 year olds that contributed a lot through the season, including league MVP Aiden Swank, Max Kitchell, Austin Keisling and Micah Rogers.
14-year-old Josh Middleton was a big contributor on the mound, at first base and behind the plate and 13-year-old Blake Pearson did most of the catching and 13-year-old Jaden Good played in the infield a lot.
F.O.P. knocked off No. 1 seed Security Federal 12-1 in the title game. Smith said Security Federal didn't have its full team that day.
"Unfortunately Security Federal had two players who were brothers, the Portilla brothers, who moved in and are living with their grandparents here in town and played JV baseball this year. They were gone on a trip back to where they were from in Mexico so they didn't have them available. Security Federal had beaten us twice during the regular season, so we didn't really play the Security Federal team that was there with most of the season.
"One of them pitches but the key thing is one was a first baseman, one was a third baseman and they were the Nos. 3 and 4 hitters in their lineup, that takes a lot out of a team when that happens."
Swank was named the Logansport MVP, 14-year-old Jose Portilla was named the Rookie of the Year and Security Federal's Hudson McKinney was named the Mental Attitude Award winner.
Logansport has a 15U All-Star team that includes 15 players, eight who were JV players in high school last spring and seven were junior high players. Two weeks ago Logan won the Noblesville Firecracker travel ball tournament with a 4-0-1 record.
Logan is hosting a state tournament this week. Logan plays Duneland at 8 p.m. Thursday at Steinman Field. It's a double-elimination tournament.
With four Babe Ruth teams and a successful All-Star team, the local league is looking to continue to supply the varsity baseball team with talented players. The Logansport varsity graduated a talented senior class this year but will look to reload.
"This eighth grade group of the past school year is a pretty talented group going in as freshmen this coming year," Smith said. "Hopefully they can fill in some gaps as they get older at the high school level and hopefully keep our program — especially if we do get moved to 3A, hopefully that will help make our program stronger on the Indiana state side of things as well."
