The 9U Demopolis All Star Baseball team will travel to Florence today for the state tournament and Head Coach James Thrash is excited.

“We’re hitting well, playing well as a team, and good at knowing where we need to be when we need to be there,” he said.

For the past six weeks Thrash and his assistant coaches Russell Pipkins and Jeffery Holley have been working with the players on their hitting, but have also focused on pitching, which is still somewhat new to the players.

In the 9U league pitching machines are benched and batters must face live pitching.

Holley has been attempting to improve on the team’s pitching and catching, but it’s not come easy.

The roster lacks 10 year olds, who would fill those positions in a normal season, but are not a part of this league.

“We’ve had them pitch every day,” Thrash said. “We’re trying to find out who can throw the most strikes.”

Without a district tournament to ready themselves for state, the 9U team has been working on their defense and fielding using practice games with the 8U division.