Trials for under-16 NZ baseball team

Story by: Shuttersport - Photo by: By Chris Symes

Head Coach Aaron Campbell, one of the nation’s first athletes to play and coach at a university in America and who recently trained with Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs along with former Taiwanese professional and Los Angeles Dodger minor leaguer player Cola Yeh came ato Saxton Field and put potential Nelson softball player through there paces for a chance to get into the under 16s NZ baseball team.

The coaching staff will be responsible for choosing a twenty (20) player roster to compete against the national teams from Guam and Australia, the latter being one of the top five teams in the world. The coaches will travel the nation, beginning this coming weekend in Northland and in Auckland, to take a look at the nation’s sporting talent, and they are prepared to scout and trial all baseball and non-baseball players born between the years of 1995-1997 (players who turn 14-16 years old in 2011). Additionally, each team may also carry three (3) players born in 1998, or those baseball players who will turn 13 years of age in 2011.

The coaching staff will initially choose up to 30 players for the Under-16 National Development Squad by 20 December, and will search databases of Kiwi players who are playing baseball in Australia, Canada or elsewhere to ensure all potential players are seen or contacted. The final squad will be selected in the second week of January 2011, with the triple round-robin tournament beginning two weeks later on 25 January and concluding on 28 January.