Friday, July 3, 2009

CELEBRATION -- The Key West 12-and-under travel baseball squad will face some tough national and international competition beginning today in the Disney Salute to Baseball Festival at the Disney Wide World of Sports.

The young Conchs finished in third place last year in the tournament and are looking to move past the Dominican Republic team, but must take care of business this morning in their first game.

At 11 a.m., Key West faces the Hitters World Hurricanes (Illinois) in the Blue or Kevin Youkilis Bracket. Also in the Youkilis bracket is the Future Stars (Florida) Los Robles School (Venezuela) and Hilliard Panthers (Ohio).

There are five squads in the Red or Evan Longoria bracket with two more Illinois teams and a squad from New York, Florida and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Eight of the top 10 teams will vie for seeding in the championship bracket which begins Wednesday, July 7 and concluded on Thursday, July 9.

Head coach Greg Veliz said his squad has played very well in the postseason and would like to win another tournament.

"We've won two of the three tournaments we've played in and we're in the finals of the fourth one that got rained out in Kendall. I think we have a pretty good chance of winning that one, also," Veliz said. "We're really deep in pitching. I think no one kid has pitched more than three games. Not everyone pitches in a tournament so they get to go first in the next."

Veliz said this team has really responded to the training to get where they are.

"They came out this year and we told them we were going to play a different game," he said. "It was going to be a lot of discipline and a lot more running and they bought into the whole thing."

Key West plays game number two at 10 a.m., Saturday against Los Robles School from Venezuela.

"If we can work our way through our side, we're probably going to see the Dominican team in the end," the coach said.

rcooke@keysnews.com