13U Lockport Cobras play larger than their size

LOCKPORT – The 13U Lockport Cobras baseball team didn’t know what to expect when they made the trip to Omaha, Nebraska, to play in the second session of the Slumpbuster Tournament in mid-June.

What they immediately saw was the opposing teams were much bigger. They didn’t back down, however.

After going 1-1 in pool play and earning the eighth seed in Division I, the Cobras’ team effort helped them win every playoff game. They took first place with a 9-5 championship game victory over the AB Seals from California.

“We peaked at the perfect time,” Cobras coach Dan Moran said. “It was interesting because I thought that after we lost to Birmingham, the kids were going to pack it in because it was one of our worst games. We were leading, 3-2, in the seventh, and the kids just couldn’t make a play. They scored five in the last inning to beat us. After that game, I didn’t know where our kids were going to be mentally.

“We played a team from Oklahoma in the quarterfinals. You should’ve seen those kids. They’re 13-year-olds, and I don’t know where they got their size. But we beat them. That was probably the game that elevated us to the championship. I don’t think anyone expected us to get to the championship, and we did.”

The Cobras began the tournament beating the Highlands Ranch Hammers, 6-1, before falling to the Birmingham Spartans, 7-3. Leading to the championship game, they topped the OKC Bulldogs, 9-6, and the Lakeside Legends, 4-2, in Division I play.

By the time they stepped onto the field to play the AB Seals, the Cobras knew they could win.

“We were the underdogs,” pitcher and third baseman John Weis said. “When you go in as the last seed, the first team kind of looks past you. We just went on and played the best that we could.

“I don’t think that we were nervous going into the last game because that was our third game of the day, and we had already won two. We felt pumped up like we could win.”

TEAM EFFORT PREVAILS

Reese Johnson hit a homer in the win over OKC that pumped up the Cobras. Pitcher/shortstop Nolan Weis caught a line drive with his eyes closed. When second baseman/center fielder Jack Moran went up to bat, the pitcher threw a curve ball into the dirt, and Moran reached out and singled.

In the semifinal, David Ewert had the performance that garnered tournament MVP honors.

There were pitching restrictions for the number of innings in the tournament. Because many Cobras pitched a lot of innings, Ewert – normally a spot pitcher – was asked to throw a complete game.

“We told David in the semifinals that we needed him to pitch five innings, which he hasn’t done all year,” coach Moran said. “That was a big catalyst. We asked him to pull through for us in five innings, which he did, and it actually went to extra innings. He only gave up one run.”

Even though individual performances stood out, the Cobras won because of the combined team effort. The biggest thing was the team played to its biggest strength.

“We went in thinking that it would be a fun tournament, not really thinking that we were going to come back from the eighth seed and beat the first, second and fifth seeds,” Nolan Weis said. “We had the intensity to win, and we were more ready than the other teams. We just played more fundamental baseball than other teams.”

The 13U Cobras have had a core of their team playing together for five years. Because they always have been undersized, their coaches taught them from a young age they needed strong fundamentals. That has helped the park district team compete with the bigger-name clubs.

“Our fundamentals are one of our biggest strengths,” Jack Moran said. “Because we are undersized, we can’t throw the ball as hard as the other players or hit the ball as far. We play teams like Rhinos Baseball or Sparks Baseball that are so much bigger that the ball just jumps off their bat or comes flying out of their hand after they pitch it because some of their kids are 5-9. They’re freshmen; they can just throw heat and do so much more than us because of their size. Since we’re so fundamentally sound as a team, that’s help us a lot to compete.”

Another thing that plays into their success is they still are kids having fun playing the sport that they love.

“Some of our practices are fun because our coaches like to have fun as coaches, where other teams are so hard on the kids that they kind of give up and not try as hard,” Nolan Weis said. “We like to have fun. We’ll be taking ground balls for 20 minutes and at the end of practice, we’ll play a game of yellow ball. We’ll just split teams up and hit dingers.”

WHAT LIES AHEAD

Since the Slumpbuster Tournament, the Cobras picked up their fourth tournament win of the year when they placed first in the Lockport Lockdown Tournament last weekend.

The Cobras have one tournament left. Almost immediately after, they’ll pick teams for the Cobras 14U, the last year of the program for the boys. If they decide to continue after Cobras 14U, they will split up and go to different clubs.

Virtually all of the Cobras, however, will try out for Lockport’s baseball team in the upcoming months as freshmen.

“These kids should be proud of the fact that we have, in some ways, a much more difficult set of rules to play by,” Cobras assistant coach Andy Weis said. “We’re only allowed to have a few kids on the team from outside of the Lockport school district, and that’s not the rules that most of the other teams play by because they’re club teams.

“Our team is more of a family that has fun and plays hard. I think because we have a fair amount of talent, that it works better for us. We’re always behind each other. They’re not looking to the team that they’re going to play on next year or scouting to play on another team. We’re together, and we’ve done well considering that it’s kind of a handicap.

“If you have a good great of kids, you’re going to win a lot of games. If you don’t, it’s difficult because you can’t get kids from Joliet, except for maybe two. I’m proud of the high level that we compete at, even though we’re somewhat handicapped against teams that we face.”

The 14U Lockport Cobras will have their 2016 tryouts on July 25. For information, email dmoran0325@aol.com.