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LOOK OUT WORLD
Poland softball players are ready for West Coast Series
By TOM WILLIAMS
POLAND
Today, 12-year-old pitcher Ally Deemer will take her first ride in a jet.
She’s on a remarkable journey to the West Coast that she and 11 teammates on the Poland 11-12 Little League softball team will never forget.
“It’s really exciting, not just being my first flight but also going to the World Series,” Ally said.
Last Friday, the Ohio champions defeated Indiana, 5-4, in Carthage, Mo., to win the Little League Central Region and qualify for the World Series that will be played in Portland, Ore, from Thursday through Aug. 18.
“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity,” center fielder and leadoff batter Abby Masluk said.
Poland’s journey begins with a flight from Pittsburgh to Chicago then another to Seattle. From there, they will ride a bus three hours south to Portland.
Poland knows a thing or two about bus rides. The team chartered a bus for the 16-hour trip to Missouri where the team went unbeaten in six games.
“It was fun ... and long,” right fielder Claire Testa said of bonding on the bus. “You get to know [everyone] better.”
Poland is the first area softball team to qualify for the Little League World Series. (Three years ago, Boardman sent a team to the Junior League World Series, the 13-14-year-old version of Little League.)
The other players are Dani Rutana, Maddie Rowe, Kat Wilson, Jenna Schettler, Megan Marsico, Aleah Hughes, Arlia Duarte, Kristyn Svetlak and Cara Kalouris,
Head coach Chuck Masluk credits the Poland community softball program for creating this opportunity.
To qualify for Little League, players must play on community recreational teams.
“We believe in Little League, in community ball,” Masluk said.
This year, Poland Community Baseball Association fielded two teams that played squads from Boardman, Canfield, Struthers and Austintown.
An All-Star team then was created from the two Poland teams and played other all-star teams in a district tournament at Boardman’s Fields of Dreams.
Poland also has a weekend travel team, Poland Pride, that gives the girls extra opportunities to improve by facing face quality competition.
“A few years ago, Sam Fisher created a travel program for weekends,” Masluk said. “That evolved into Poland Pride.”
Most of the girls have been playing with the Pride.
“You see a little better competition, you play a lot of games on the weekend,” said Masluk who was a recreational league coach as well as the Pride coach. “You get a lot of touches and see a lot of different pitching.”
Masluk credits Zel Bush and Gene Chandler for pioneering the program.
Masluk’s assistant, Dave Marsico, said that by winning some travel tournaments, “We could see we had a very good opportunity this year.”
Masluk said, “We didn’t have to go four hours to get into a good tournament. There are enough good tournaments within an hour of here.”
After winning the district tournament, Poland won the state title in Portsmouth to earn the trip to Missouri.
“When we won our first two games [at regional], we started thinking that we could actually win this,” Claire said. “I got more excited and more motivated to play better.”
Now, they are one of 10 teams going to Oregon.
The World Series begins with two pools of five teams playing each other once. The two teams in each pool with the best records will advance to the single-elimination semifinal round.
Poland opens tournament play on Thursday against Southwest winner (Washington County, Brenham, Texas) at 11 p.m. On Friday at 8 p.m., Poland plays Latin America (Maunabo, Puerto Rico)
After an off day on Saturday, Poland resumes play on Sunday at 5:30 p.m. against the West winner (Burbank, Calif.). Pool play ends on Monday at 8 p.m. against Canada’s national champion.
Masluk’s life away from his sales job with Mitsubishi Electric Automation revolves around softball.
“He’s always doing something involved with softball,” Abby said.
Masluk called coaching this team “the greatest pleasure I’ve ever had. It’s a great group of girls. They work hard individually and as a team.”
Well aware he has clients who require attention, Masluk said he has just enough vacation time for all but one day of the Oregon trip.
Marsico is a project manager for MS Consultants.
“We’re really sports oriented ... so I’m very fortunate [to have understanding bosses],” Marsico said.
Abby and Ally are looking forward to meeting new friends.
“It’s fun to play and meet new people,” Abby said. “When we were in Missouri, we met a bunch of girls in the hotel — it was fun.”
Ally said, “we went swimming with [the other teams]. South Dakota was the team we [bonded] with most.”
Claire said she thinks it will be fun to see how others play the game she loves.
“It’s probably different than how we play it,” Claire said. “I’m really excited to hear how they speak.”