15U All-Star team earns sportsmanship honor, 3rd at World Series

The Charlotte County 15U All-Star team, which features six players from Prince Edward County, helped make a name for both counties at the 2018 Dixie Boys 15U World Series in Ozark, Alabama, finishing an impressive third out of 20 teams and also earning the tournament’s sportsmanship award.

“I really think the boys played well together, the same way they did in the state tournament,” Charlotte Manager Jeff Rapole said Monday.

Because Prince Edward did not field a team this year at the 15U age level, the Charlotte squad includes an even split of Prince Edward and Charlotte talent that orchestrated an undefeated run in the state tournament.

“They’re a great group of young men,” Rapole said.

The Prince Edward players include Johnny Ray Holman Jr., Wade Jenkins, Nate Reed, Michael Seward, Jake Simon and Aliq Walker.

The Charlotte team’s run at the World Series came to a conclusion Sunday with a 6-4 loss to a team from Monroe, Louisiana.

“That was the semifinal game,” Rapole said. “We had made it through everything into the semifinals.”

He noted that it was simply a few errors in that contest that cost Charlotte.

“Other than that, I think those boys, on any given day, the outcome could have been (different),” he said Monday. “We just didn’t hit the ball as well yesterday as we did through the rest of the tournament.”

Monroe finished as the runner-up behind a team from Enterprise, Alabama.

On Saturday, Charlotte faced a Calhoun, Louisiana, squad and defeated it 16-1 in five innings, with the mercy rule coming into effect.

“We hadn’t given up a run until that day,” Rapole said, referring to his team’s stint in Alabama.

Charlotte’s July 20 game invoked the mercy rule even sooner as the boys defeated a Greenbrier, Tennessee, team 12-0 in four innings. Simon was a standout on the mound in this contest.

The tourney opener for Charlotte County came July 19 against a team called Titletown that hailed from North Charleston, South Carolina. It had won the 2017 Dixie Boys 14U World Series.

“Not knowing that,” Rapole said of his players, “they went out there and played really serious ball. They played with their hearts, and to win a 2-0 ballgame against a championship team speaks really highly of the kids.”

Rapole used essentially every pitcher on the team during the tournament, including Simon, Brenden Francisco, Jenkins, Holman, Reed and Camron Smith.

Of his team winning the sportsmanship award, Rapole said, “Honestly, that probably means the most. … To travel 600 and some odd miles and go play baseball and to end up with the sportsmanship trophy out of 20 teams, that’s pretty awesome. You can’t go wrong with that. That just tells you that all the Dixie representatives, they all voted on it, so they must have thought well of our Virginia kids.”