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BY RAY WILDE
SPORTS CORRESPONDENT
Branson, MO -- The Mifflin County Babe Ruth 15-16-year-old All-Stars will be leaving for the 2026 World Series site on Monday. Ahead of them are a lot of games.
Mifflin County will open pool play on Friday, Aug. 7, against Fort Myers, Florida at 11:30 am. Its second game will be against the United Kingdom (England) at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 8. Sunday will be an off day. On Monday (Aug. 10) at 11:30 am, Mifflin County will play a team from Arizona (Native Americans) and the final pool game will be at 9 p.m. on Tuesday (Aug. 11) against the country of Columbia. There are four pools of five teams each.
After pool play is over teams will be separated into a winner's pool and a loser’s pool.
Those pools are double elimination. The winner’s pool is for the final four and the championship. The other pool will be a battle for fifth place. There are 20 teams in the tournament.
In the six previous World Series, Mifflin County has never finished below seventh place.
The 2016 13-year-olds won the national title. The 2018 and 2021 15-year-olds were national runners-up. The 2002 15-year-olds and the 2022 14-year-olds were tied for fifth place. The 2004 15-year-olds were tied for seventh place.
The four new teams that Mifflin County starts out with brings the total of teams or regions that Mifflin County has played to 146. Mifflin County has played Tallassee, Florida five times in the series, but Fort Myers is from Southern Florida. Florida is divided into two parts, Northern and Southern.
Mifflin County has never played a team from Arizona. This will be the 23rd different state Mifflin County has played against including Pennsylvania. England and Columbia will be just second and third countries that Mifflin County has gone up against. Mifflin County played against a team from Canada in 2004.
Denny Yetter is just the fifth manager to lead a Mifflin County team into a World Series. Yetter has an overall record of 87-63. His record in McVeytown is 68-52. Yetter's All-Star mark is 19-11.
Defense
In talking about his team's defense, Yetter feels that it will be better in Branson.
"The field in Williamsport was very hard. I think we will play better on defense on turf fields. I think our team speed will come to the forefront.”
Mifflin County committed 11 errors in Williamsport, but five of those came in the team's third game (its only loss to West End). In the other four games, the team only had six miscues.
"Our catching was outstanding, " said Yetter. "It just didn't get much better. Luke (Shawver) and Maverick (Smith) were excellent."
Shawver didn't allow a pass ball in four games and it was his spectacular catch for the second out in the bottom of the seventh inning of the championship game that put West End to bed.
Offense
On offense Mifflin County scored 40 runs in five games.The team average is .355. .Leading the team in hits is Kooper Walters with seven, while close behind is Maverick Smith and Colton Aumiller with six.
Mifflin County has 13 extra base hits. Aumiller has two doubles and two triples. Liam Shaffer is close behind Aumiller with three extra base hits, a double and two triples. Shawver had two doubles. While Landen Pecht, Jude Zook, Max Trawitz, and Smith each had a double.
Pecht and Shaffer had two of the biggest extra base hits in the 72 year history of the league. Pecht's double in the bottom of the seventh inning in the semi-finals gave Mifflin County a 5-4 as he knocked in three runs to win the game.
Then in the finals, Shaffer smashed a bases-loaded triple that gave Mifflin County the lead in the top of the seventh, 7-5. Mifflin County eventually won the game, 8-5, and the regional championship.
Walters has scored eight runs from his leadoff spot and close behind him is Trawitz with seven runs crossing the plate.
Shaffer leads the team with 11 RBI's. He had five in the championship game. Close behind Shaffer is Aumiller with seven.
"We have been working on our approach at the plate," said Yetter, "We had some key hits in the regionals that really helped us pull out big wins."
Pitching
Yetter and his staff (Bo Trawitz and Travis Zook) used eight pitchers in the regionals.
Shaffer went 1-0 and made two appearances. He had a WHIP of 1.71. Aumiller was also 1-0 and had a WHIP of 1.00. Haven Bridge was the ace of the staff. He made three trips to the mound and had a 1-0 record. Bridge had a WHIP of 1.00 and led the team in strikeouts with 17 in eight innings. The team's WHIP is 1.88.
The other win came from Noah Bunch, who went six innings for 9-1 win over Southern New Jersey. Other players who saw work on the mound were Smith, Trawitz, Caden McClure and Zook (0-1).
""I think our pitching was our strong point in Williamsport," Yetter commented. "We got huge pitching performances from the whole staff."
Statistics
There should be two team milestones that should occur in Branson. When the team has its 84th official at bat it will be the league's 32,000 in league history (1955-2026). Mifflin County needs to score at least 31 runs to get to 9,000. The Mifflin County All-Stars have scored 8,969 runs (all ages) in 1,161 games going into the World Series.
Mifflin County’s record in the World Series is 20-13 and in the month of August is 80-68.
Mifflin County’s record in the Mid-Atlantic regionals is now 99-73.
Overall, Mifflin County now has a record of 789-372.