Sara Stadem | Editor
With many events to choose from throughout the weekend of Colton Country Days, there was one more added this year for any youth ranging in age of 10 to 14. The Jr. Home Run Derby was powered by @MLBdevelops Competition and hosted by the Tri-Valley Baseball Association on Saturday, July 24.
According to Tri-Valley Baseball Association board member Kasia Pollard, each contestant received three warm-up pitches followed by 15 official pitches via pitching machine. After that, the top four contestants in each age group moved on to a final round where they started with zero home runs and once again received three warm-up pitches and 15 official pitches.
“For the 12U age group, the City of Colton put up a snow fence in the middle of the outfield. Anything hit over the snow fence was considered a home run,” Pollard explained. She continued, “However, our 12U winner ended up hitting all of her home runs out of the park over the normal outfield fence. The 14U had to hit the ball outside the normal outfield fence for it to be considered a home run. The participant from each age group with the most home runs in the second round was the winner of the event.”
Congratulations goes to the following winners:
12U Champion – Peyton LaFramboise, Sioux Falls
14U Champion – Brody Dybvig, Colton
The winners advance to the Regional Competition which will be held this fall, Pollard explained. From there, the winners of the Regional Competition will move on to the final competition which will be held at the World Series.
When asked what she liked about the competition, LaFramboise said, “I liked that this was my first home run derby I have ever been in and it was fun competing with my friend, Emry, against the boys.” LaFramboise is looking forward to getting to travel to Kansas City and be able to see the what the competition will be like from around the region.
Dybvig said, “It wasn’t easy. There was good competition. It was a lot of fun.” He is also excited to get to travel to Kansas City for the Regional Competition.
Pollard said, “We had 18 kids participate. MLB requires online registration which was open throughout the event. However, we may have had another couple participants if we didn’t require online registration.” She concluded, “I have a feeling we will see more participants at next year’s event. It was a fun event all around!”