Featured Team: 13U LA Tigers Coached by Past LSU All-America Head to Disney’s Wide World of Sports Elite Tournament

When the 2008 13U LA Tigers met in February for their annual two day “Boot Camp” neither the Players nor the Coaches really knew what to expect.  The Tigers only had three players from the 2007 season returning, they had merged with a long time rival and their Head Coach had moved to Atlanta.  Those two days set the tone for the season.  Former Tiger Coach Leo McClure came back from Atlanta to run the Boot Camp along with his son, Baton Rouge native and former LSU All-American Trey McClure.  As the weekend progressed it was obvious that a bond was forming between Coach Leo, Coach Trey and the new LA Tigers.  Before the next weekend Coach Leo had been convinced to travel back and forth from Atlanta to coach the Tigers and to do so with his son Trey.  As they say the rest is history.

The Tigers started the season with five straight tournament victories that included winning the Bullet Invitational with a come from behind 4-3 win over Elite 24 participant and TravelBallSelect’s 24th ranked Bullet Baseball.  Later in the same month the Tigers traveled to Southaven, Mississippi for the Sonic Slam where they faced the Elite 24 bound Lakeview Pirates (tied 3-3) and beat TravelBallSelect’s Honorable Mentioned team, the Memphis Travelers and 2008 TBS Player to Watch Chase Hamilton in a 1-0 thriller to capture the Sonic Slam title.  Along the way the Tigers have had close battles with other ranked teams like Ark-LA-Tex Tornado (ranked 15th) and the Atlanta Monarchs (ranked 11th) both games were tough 2-1 losses.  The Tigers later traveled to Pace, FL for the Last Chance Super NIT, which was their “Last Chance” to qualify for Disney, only to have the entire weekend wash out.  Once back in Baton Rouge the Tigers got the call that they were being rewarded for their hard work, great attitude and success on the field with an At-Large bid to the Elite 24.  Which by the way was the only goal set by the team that first weekend in February.

The Tiger roster including:  James Smith # 00 – P/OF, Jordan Romero # 3 – C/OF, David Losavio #18 – P/INF/of, Andrew Fournet #22 – P/OF/INF, Austin Dedon #23 – P/INF, Dylan Wagner #24 – OF, Jake Hutchinson #25 – P/C/INF, Sam Wilson #28 – INF, Myles Dearman #31 – P/INF/OF, Austin Thomas #45 – P/OF and Josh Morris #75 – INF/C/P along with their Coaches Leo McClure, Trey McClure, Jeff Dedon, Marc Fournet and Kyle Thomas look forward to a great week at Disney.  Ask any opponent of the Tigers and they will tell you this group of young men from the Baton Rouge area play hard, they play with heart and they are well coached!

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