Local youths win Team Championship round of Pitch, Hit and Run

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — Rylan Peters and Claire Girkin are realistic about their chances of being selected for the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

“I’m kinda hoping for it,” Peters said. “Maybe it will happen.”

“If I do get there, it would have to be a bad year for 9- and 10-year-olds,” Girkin said. “I had about the same overall score as I did last year, and I didn’t get the call then.”

Perhaps both are more likely to represent the Minnesota Twins at the Mid-Summer Classic, July 12 in San Diego than the Twins themselves.

“We stayed for the game,” Rylan’s father Rick Peters said of the Twins’ June 11 home game against Boston. “At one point the game was close at 5-4, but then the Twins made some errors in the eighth inning, and things really went bad in the ninth.”

The Red Sox eventually won, 15-4.

Earlier that day, Rylan and Claire took the field at Target Field and distinguished themselves more competently than the home team.

For the second year in a row, Girkin won the Scotts Major League Baseball Pitch, Hit and Run Twins Team Championship in the 9-10-year-old Girls Softball Division.

Peters won the Twins Team Championship in the 7-8-year-old Boys Baseball Division.

It was a long road to get to Target Field. The first leg of the journey was the PHR local competition, which took place May 14 at Lion’s Field in Charles City.

Only the first-place division winners advanced to the sectional round, which was held two weekends later at Riverfront Stadium in Waterloo.

In order to advance to the Twins Team Championship round, division winners had to have placed in the top three among other sectional winners within the Northern Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota region.

For the PHR National Finals which will be held at SD’s Petco Field as part of the All-Star Game festivities, only the top three overall division scores from all the Team Championship winners get selected.

This is the third year Girkin has participated in Pitch, Hit and Run.

“I’ll probably do it until I’m 14,” said Girkin, who plays local town ball as well as travel ball. She plays most positions, but specializes in pitching.

“But hitting and running are what I do best,” she said.

This is Peters’s second go at PHR. He won the local competition last year, but youth baseball team obligations made it where he couldn’t compete in the sectional round.

The pitching and hitting portions of the Team Championships were held in a corner of the Target Field outfield. The running part was held in the infield where contestants were timed going from second to home.

In the lower rounds, contestants ran a second-to-home distance akin to their youth league distances.

“Even at (Riverfront Stadium) they shortened the distance,” Girkin said.

For Peters, who participated in his first Team Championships, it was his first opportunity to trek 180 feet along a major league park’s basepaths.

“It was exciting,” he said. “I just ran … I hope to do it again some day.”