Not much luck for Everett Little League stars in Williamsport Tournament

Most of the team now head to Wakefield to participate in Jimmy Fund tourney                                                

By Joe McConnell

When a new Little Leaguer hears the word Williamsport, a sense of excitement usually comes over them, and they’d do anything to make that all-star team. After many hours of practice and hard work to go along with the natural progressions through the league from T-ball to the Majors, they were hoping at that point they had showed enough to be selected to play in the granddaddy of all baseball tournaments. If by then they made the cut, they would suddenly realize they would also need some luck to advance from district play to the state finals to the regionals in Bristol, Conn. to finally Williamsport, Pa.

Last summer, the Everett Little League Williamsport representatives won the District 12 title, but this year’s squad had some trouble getting untracked. They ended up losing two straight district games to South Boston (June 29) and host Melrose (16-1 mercy rule loss on July 1) to drop out of the double elimination tournament rather quickly.

The Everett stars scored their lone run against Melrose in the second inning. Elias Elmouttaki led off the inning with a walk, and came all the way around to score the run on a line double to the leftfield fence by Allie Grant.

But unfortunately, Melrose scored a bunch of runs in the first and second innings, and so by the time the home half of the third rolled around the game was over, because of the mercy rule.

“It was the first time our players played on grass, and they were not used to the (slower) speed of the ball on that type of surface,” said Everett Williamsport manager Marc Harr. “Our pitcher (Joseph Reyes) was throwing strikes, but Melrose (seemingly) was swinging away and making contact all the time.”

It was not your typical Little League game, where players swing away, but seldom make consistent contact.

Despite being eliminated early on in the District 12 tournament, there’s more baseball for most of these kids to play as the summer season is just starting to heat up. They will be participating in a Jimmy Fund Tournament in Wakefield this week.

Eight of these Williamsport stars are also on this roster, and they include Dimitri Kotsiopoulos, Natalia Negron, Shane Gaskill, Archer Polson, Aidan Kane, cousins Joseph and Denzel Reyes and Amy Grant. Niko Kotsiopoulos, Dimitri’s brother, Deven Carreiro and Jimmy Striker round out the Jimmy Fund team. Striker and Carreiro were on the third place Rays during the regular season, while Niko was a 10-year-old on the Red Sox, the 2024 Major Division city champs.