It’s been a wild few weeks for the Southern Junior Little League baseball team.

Last weekend, Southern clinched its first state title in Fort Worth and locked up a berth in the Southwest regional in Midland. Should they win that tournament, Southern will travel to the Junior Baseball World Series in Michigan.

But financial troubles threatened to scuttle the trip to regionals, with the team needing to raise about $4,500 to make the journey.

The Southern Junior Little League baseball team will travel to Midland to compete in the Southwest regional tournament beginning Friday.
Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald

Thanks to a frenzied weekend of fundraising, Southern will indeed open their tourney in Midland on Friday.

With $1,500 already in hand, the team raised another $2,500 from various fundraisers over the weekend, and a donation of more than $1,000 late Monday from Brazos Funeral Home put the team well over its stated goal.

According to Southern Little League president Tony Pena, Southern’s “time of despair” turned into one of joy in a matter of days.

“The outpouring was just phenomenal,” Pena said. “My phone was just being flooded.”

Of course, getting there was only the first part of the journey. The second is winning games, something Southern’s been quite good at this summer.

Southern was one win from a state title last year, and the team made up entirely of freshman and sophomore University students entered 2010 feeling as though state was a conquerable obstacle. All but three Southern players are in the higher 14-year-old age group, which handed the team a significant edge in experience after the team won its district for the first time in 2009.

“All year long they did everything they could to keep working hard,” Southern coach Miguel Jimenez said.

The story of Southern’s playoff run has been resilience. The team easily swept District 9 in Crawford, winning all four games, but sectionals provided the first major hurdle. Southern dropped an early game and had to win twice on the final day to advance to state.

They won both handily, which paved the way to Fort Worth.

“We got to Fort Worth, and they woke up every morning and they were ready to go,” Jimenez said.

The dedication showed. Just like in 2009, Southern was placed in a win-or-go-home final game at state, where the team faltered in a 7-5 loss to end their summer season last year. This time Southern triumphed, defeating Corpus Christi Oil Belt, 7-2, to win state for the first time.

“I got the last out, they hit it to me,” second baseman Eric Guerrero said. “I was praying they were going to hit the ball to me, and I just wanted to make the last out. We were pretty excited.”

Almost the entire roster pitches, and Jimenez said the team’s defense rarely makes mental lapses. Spice in a solid lineup from top to bottom, and Southern likes its chances to advance to state.

University, which will eventually get all of these players, has never been a hub for baseball. It was only two seasons ago that the Trojans varsity baseball team suffered through a brutal winless district season. This current crop, all of whom likely have futures with the University baseball team, is out to alter those preconceptions. The core of this particular group has been playing together for seven years.

“That’s University’s future right there,” Jimenez said. “They brought a state title to Southern, hopefully they can bring one to University.”

But getting the team on the same page over the course of so many seasons was never easy.

“It’s hard,” Jimenez said. “A lot of kids want to turn the other way, but we tell them, ‘Is that what you want to do, go and run to the street? Or do you want to play baseball?’ They kind of surprised all of us.”

wparchman@wacotrib.com

757-5711