On June 13, one Wilton U10 boys baseball team will be heading to the baseball capital of the world–Cooperstown, NY. They’ll be competing in the Cooperstown All Star Village tournament, a competition founded in 1999 to provide baseball players ages 10–12 with as close to a major league baseball experience as possible. The teams play on multiple baseball fields and sport realistic uniforms.

In order to prepare for the tournament, the team has been playing in the East Shore League throughout the spring. The Wilton Warriors U10 baseball manager, Scott Gioffre, has high hopes for his team and the tournament.

“This is a good way to have our kids go out and play some baseball, and to have some fun too. Wilton really hasn’t been a huge baseball town, although we did win FCIACs this year. A Wilton team has only ever won four games in the tournament, so our goal is to get five.”

The Wilton Warriors have been a dominant team in the East Shore League this year. As the regular season comes to a close, the Warriors own a record of  12-4. Losing their first two games to the Trumbell Travel team, Gioffre and his team bounced back and won seven in a row. They have been very solid this year, and hope to continue that going into the tournament.

“We are good with the bat, and it was something I really didn’t expect. We thought we had a good defensive team, which we do, but I didn’t expect to be scoring a lot of runs in blow out games,” Gioffre says.

The tournament also offers elements that some of the young kids on the team have never experienced before. Realistically, there are no definite expectations, because it is impossible to know what teams are good. All teams participating have likely never played one another before, which is something Gioffre knows.

“You really don’t know what to expect going into the tournament. There are teams from all around the country who come out to play. Some teams are going to be really good, others will be good, we just need to prepare ourselves for that.”

But the boys have confidence on their side. As the season started, Gioffre stressed how he was going to let the kids be themselves. After he developed connections with each of the players, it was up to them to learn through each other in order to become one team. Gioffre noted that not only is each player on the team individually good, but also that the kids have really grown to play well with each other.

Coaches: Mario Ferrante, Scott Gioffre, Chris Stengrim, Bob Belanger (not pictured)

Players: Zarius Eusebe, Alexander Reyes, Sam Gioffre, Connor Robertson, Charlie Guglielmo, Quinn Stengrim
Matthew Ferrante, Ryan Preisano, George DiRocco, Shane Taubin, Nevin Belanger, Owen English