Titles available at McKee for Starkville 12-year-olds

There are only a few more games left in the Dizzy Dean careers of Starkville's 12-year-old All-Stars.

The group, coached by Russ McReynolds, will fittingly end it in its home town of Starkville within the next week as the All-Stars host the South State and overall championships. South State comes first starting this afternoon at McKee Park.

“We're excited about it and glad we don't have to leave Starkville,” McReynolds said. “If we have success in the next couple of days, we'll get a chance to play the overall in Starkville as well. This is their last go round so they're excited for the chance to win a couple of titles.”

The group is composed of Garrett Carson, Eli Dale, Zack Harris, Wyatt Johnson, Mac McReynolds, Justin Ming, Xavier Prater, Ethan Pulliam, Jack Ruth, Newt Thomas, Brennon Wright and Drew Williams. Assisting Russ McReynolds is coach Ryan Smith.

The players are quite familiar with each other as most of them have played together for some time now. As a whole, McReynolds really likes his team in every facet.

“We've got a lot of good ball players,” McReynolds said. “We have solid bats up and down the lineup and a lot of pitchers. Eight out of the 12 players can pitch and we feel pretty comfortable with them.”

The biggest issue facing most every team in Dizzy Dean this season is the implementation of the pitch counts. That's something that McReynolds is unsure about with his team this week.

“This will be the first time where we have to really count the number of pitches that they can throw,” McReynolds said.”You're limited to 20 pitches and if you go past that you have to have a day of rest. We may just have to line it up and let them go an inning a piece.”

The pitchers that McReynolds and Smith rely on the most are Pulliam, Williams and Wright. Others include Ming, Mac McReynolds, Ruth, Carson and Johnson.

That group of players and the rest should be well-tuned for this weekend's matchup that begins with Louisville at 4 p.m. today.