AGOURA CLOSING ON WORLD SERIES.Byline: Vincent Bonsignore Daily News Staff Writer Much like his teammates on the Agoura Pony League The Pennsylvania-Ontario-New York League, also known as the PONY League, was a Class D minor league baseball circuit that played from 1939 through 1956. The forerunner of the modern Class A New York - Penn League, the PONY served as the first professional baseball address of All-Star baseball All-Star Baseball is a baseball video game series developed and published by Acclaim Entertainment. The series began in 1998 with the release of All-Star Baseball '99. team, Gavin Ketchum is a confident young player these days. As he prepares to lead Agoura into this weekend's Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, Divisional Championship tournament, Ketchum welcomes the chance to play for a berth in the 9-10 year-old World Series next week in Texas. ``I think we can make it all the way,'' said Ketchum, a catcher/outfielder. ``I knew we could go all the way from the very start.'' Ketchum's confidence reflects a growing spirit on the Agoura team, which qualified for the divisional tournament in Valencia this week after winning a sectional sec·tion·al adj. 1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a particular district. 2. Composed of or divided into component sections. n. championship two weeks ago. By capturing the sectional title and taking second place in an opening-round district tournament, Agoura has proven it can compete against the top teams in California California (kăl'ĭfôr`nyə), most populous state in the United States, located in the Far West; bordered by Oregon (N), Nevada and, across the Colorado River, Arizona (E), Mexico (S), and the Pacific Ocean (W). . The eight-team sectional tournament ends Sunday. The winner advances to the World Series on Monday. ``They're starting to believe they can do this,'' said Agoura coach Steve Rivetti. ``In some ways this is a surprise because you never dream you can get this far. But you can see the confidence growing.'' Although Agoura has a number of quality pitchers, its strength has been an explosive offense. The team has played together for one month but already has 25 home runs. In the five-game sectional tournament, Agoura pounded 11 home runs. Most of the power is supplied by the middle of the batting order Noun 1. batting order - (baseball) a list of batters in the order in which they will bat; "the managers presented their cards to the umpire at home plate" lineup, card , which is made up of Grant Hirneise, Jonathan Fersht and Ketchum. ``It's a pretty dominating group,'' Rivetti said. ``They can really hit the ball.'' Hirneise and Fersht have also been effective pitchers, along with Josh JOSH Joshua JOSH Job Scheduling Hierarchically Alessi, Darren Byerly, Ryan Flack and Brett Joss. The depth has impressed im·press 1 tr.v. im·pressed, im·press·ing, im·press·es 1. To affect strongly, often favorably: Rivetti, who said all 12 players have made contributions so far. ``A lot of the teams we've played have nine starting players and they pretty much stick with those players,'' Rivetti said. ``But on our team everybody gets to play.'' The rest of the team consists of Trevor Duffy, Drew Norton, Miles Rattet, Tyler Rivetti and Scott Scherr. The assistant coaches are Tom Duffy and Barry Norton. ``We don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves because this is the sort of thing that can end real quickly,'' Rivetti said. ``But this is something these kids dream about, so to be this close is pretty exciting.'' |
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