Local Travel Team Illinois Redbirds 18U Wins Best of the Midwest Tournament

This weekend the Illinois Redbirds 18U coached by Bill Smith went to Best of the Midwest Regional and won 3-2 in the championship. However, it took Kyle Estand graduate of St. Lawerence to win the first game 7-1. Then Ben Figura graduate of Joliet Catholic Academy to lead the team to a victory of 10-0. Then Friday night,the second game of the day Cody Caballero graduate of Lemont Highschool helped the team win their 3rd game of four. Although the Redbirds lost their fourth game. They did make it into playoffs. They played their first playoff game Saturday night against Team Cincinnati and Henry Garretson drove 4 hours to lead the team to a victory and had 6 rbi's to help give the Redbirds a 13-4 victory. Sunday the Redbirds had to win 3 games to be champions. They knew it was going to be hard. Cody Caballero started and kept it close and Henry came in to shut the opposing team down. The Lockport favorites Jeff Duschene, Jeff Pattison and Ronnie Sessler along with Minooka graduate Matt Figora built and started the offense to win game 1,2,and 3 for Sunday. Cody Caballero then started the second game clenching the victory leading the team into the championship. Both championship teams were short on pitching. However, Henry Garetson started the championship and threw a complete game to lead the Redbirds to a victory and Andrew Vanderschaff caught all three games and the entire team beared down and brought home the trophy. The entire team of Kyle Estand, Jeff Dueshene, Jeff Pattison, Keaton Zirkle, Henry Garetson, Andrew Vanderschaff, Matt Figora, James Lulek, and Ronnie Sessler. With aditional help from Pat Kenny of Nequa Valley, and Ben Figura to win the entire tournament and go 6-1 and bring the championship home to Illinois.