Siloam Springs Set To Host Babe Ruth Regional

Determined and gritty is how Marc Hawbaker would describe the Siloam Springs Panthers 15-and-under baseball team.

"We play blue-collar baseball," Hawbaker said. "We're aggressive on the base paths. We have a lot of team speed, and we use that to our advantage. When it comes to those moments that are right, we seem to rise to the occasion and find a way within ourselves to get it done."

Hawbaker hopes the grit and determination show up again for the Panthers this weekend as they host the 13-15-year-old Babe Ruth Southwest Region Tournament at James Butts Baseball Complex.

The tournament begins on Friday at noon with its opening game and two more games will follow at 2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. Following an opening ceremony at 7 p.m. the Panthers open the tournament at 8:30 p.m. against Mississippi state champion Long Beach.

Other teams in the tournament are North Arkansas at-large team Harrison, South Arkansas champion Pine Bluff, Louisiana champion New Iberia, East Texas champion Brazoswood, South Texas champion Tri-County and West Texas champion Pampa.

The winner of the tournament, which will be determined Monday or Tuesday (if necessary), will advance to the 13-15 Babe Ruth World Series, which will be Aug. 20-27 in Longview, Wash.

This is the fourth regional tournament the Panthers have played in as a team. As the host team of this year's tournament, the Panthers were guaranteed a spot in the regional regardless of their result in the state tournament. However, the Panthers went 6-1 over the July 11-13 weekend in Harrison to win the North Arkansas Babe Ruth state championship. It's their fourth state title in the last five years.

The Panthers have also played in regional tournaments in Benton, Bay City, Texas, and Levelland, Texas.

The last three regional tournaments, the Panthers have progressively gotten better, finishing fourth, third and last year, second.

They hope with home field advantage on their side that this year may be their year.

"It's an honor to be able to host a regional with this team," Hawbaker said. "A regional is always special wherever you go. I think the other cities that we've been to have done a great job hosting the regional and been great host cities.

"We want to be a very good host city ourselves. We want to be very hospitable and give the other teams a good experience."

Hawbaker and the Panthers would like to see a good fan turnout at the ballpark this weekend.

"We also want to be able to play in front of a few more fans that show because it is our home city," he said. "I'm hoping that gives us a little more energy to the game on our behalf. There's a little bit of fear that there may be too much adrenaline, especially in that first game Friday night and we don't play within ourselves, get a little too excited. I'd rather have that problem than not having too many fans in the stands."

Along with winning the North Arkansas state championship, the Panthers have had a good summer, Hawbaker said.

Overall, the team is 18-8-2 playing Babe Ruth and USSSA baseball. Four of the team's losses have been by one run, Hawbaker said.

"It's been a real good summer for us," Hawbaker said. "We've been able to get everybody good playing time. So a roster of 14, we only play nine on the field. We've been able to give everybody opportunities. At the same time, when it comes time to compete, especially when we get into bracket play when it really counts, this team has a way of rising up and playing very competitive baseball."

The team is made up mostly of Siloam Springs High School baseball players -- mainly freshman from last year's team and a handful of sophomores.

The high school baseball team has won only four games combined over the last two seasons. However, the team competed both of those years with mainly underclassmen and played most of its games against 7A/6A-West competition.

Playing against competition its own age, the team has rallied in the summer to find success.

"I believe -- above all else -- the key is we're playing with our own age group," Hawbaker said. "At the high school level we have 15-year-old boys playing against 17- and 18-year-olds. They're probably playing up a little bit sooner than they would in most programs. In some ways that's good. Freshman and sophomores have gotten a lot of experience playing at the high school level. But they've obviously struggled playing against juniors and seniors, especially in the 7A Conference."

Rising juniors Zac Bolstad, Dodge Pruitt, Matthew McSpadden and Cole Reed have all had two years of varsity experience for Siloam Springs High School.

Rising sophomores Dawson Armstrong, Chandler Cook, Josh Hunt, Austin Price, Eli Hawbaker, Chance Junkermann, Harrison Kretzer, Logan Hamilton all played on the high school team as freshmen last year.

Rising junior Kaleb Francis played for SSHS as a freshman and Colcord's Daniel Kent round out the 14-man roster. Hawbaker is assisted by Mike Hunt and Danny Bolstad.

Regardless of the outcome this weekend, Hawbaker said the coaches stress the big picture with this team.

"That's the great thing about baseball," Hawbaker said. "It resembles life a lot. There are a lot of lessons learned whether you win or lose. It's about how do we play better as a team, get better fundamentally, keep growing together as a team. Hopefully the new high school coach (Alan Hardcastle) will take these guys to another level as they go into their sophomore, junior and senior years."

Sports on 07/25/2014