Saipan Little League Baseball Inc., president, Tony Rogolifoi said most of the 11 Little League players were urged to sign up for the junior colleges that serve as breeding ground of baseball stars in the U.S.
“It was a very fruitful academy where the players learned more than just catching, throwing and running,” Rogolifoi said.
As member-country of the BCO and beneficiary of its development programs NMI sent 11 young players to BCO training center in Hagatna to join other Little Leaguers in the Pacific region for the 10-day baseball academy.
They were Saipan Little League junior division’s Cedric C. Ada, Frankie B. Camacho, Jonah M. Flores, Arthur Jebehn, Henry T. Rabauliman, Jeremy O. Rabauliman, Justin Reyes, Ian I. Rogolifoi; senior league’s David Hosono, Keoni Lizama, and big league’s Vince Cepeda. They were selected from the 35 players picked for the initial screening on Saipan.
This is the third time NMI sent a squad of Little League players to the baseball academy and this year’s batch has the largest number of participants for the academy since NMI started sending Little Leaguers there two years ago.
Two of the scouts who watched and guided this year’s batch of young baseball players were BCO development officer, Ray Brown who played for Seattle Mariners and Matt Dickson a scout from Colby Community College in Kansas City.
Getting the attention of U.S. baseball scouts is among the great outcome of NMI’s participation in the academy this year besides learning more and making friends with other young baseball players from Australia, New Zealand, Guam and other Pacific islands and countries.
For his part, head coach Mark Flores said the skills of the participating NMI players “jumped at a large percentage.”
He also disclosed that David Hosono Jr., and Keoni Lizama of Ol’ Aces’ juniors received Charlie Hustle awards, after the training. This award is given to participants who showed tremendous effort in the training and played multiple positions in which they stood out from the rest.
Flores added that Vince Cepeda of Ol’ Aces, is among those who now have big future ahead of them. During the training, Cepeda was throwing 88 mph, and by the time they were about to finish, he threw 94 mph.
The scouts will just wait until Cepeda graduates from high school.
Tough training
Flores shared Variety how tough the training was. He said it was 10 days of almost non-stop baseball games.
At 8 a.m., he said they had to be in the field to do drills and stretching. Then, at 10 a.m., they started playing baseball until 5 p.m.
Four teams were formed each has mixed players from NMI, Palau, Australia and Guam. Flores said the games every day are followed by one-hour classroom lectures.
Flores said he noticed that the players lost weight but developed leaner muscles after the training.
“We hope to get more from them. What we want is to see them help their Little League team mates out for the next season,” Flores said adding that he and assistant coach Syl Ada also learned a lot about coaching and umpiring.
