By Dylan Wallace
When COVID-19 hit last summer, it affected every level of baseball.
The MLB found a way to play out a shortened season, but every other level of baseball did not.
Kyle McCrary, a coach for Impact baseball based in Brownstown, didn’t want the younger kids to lose a whole year of development, which is very important at a young age.
So, he decided to evaluate some of the players from travel ball in Brownstown and put together a team of 6-year-olds, which included his own son, to form an all-star team for Brownstown 6U Impact baseball.
Eleven boys were on the team, and they began practicing last September. They didn’t play any games last fall or winter, but decided to solely focus on practice.
McCrary remembers the first day of practice when Tom Wischmeier said to him, “Man, Kyle, what are we doing? They are raw and 6 (years old), man.”
They didn’t know how well things would work with such a young group, but as the autumn leaves faded off the trees, McCrary saw a lot of improvement with this group.
“It was surprising the improvements they made,” McCrary said.
They were practicing two times a week, and things really started to click for the 6U Impact baseball team.
“That was the surprising thing,” McCrary said. “This group, to see the amount of improvement and the way they focus and listen in practice for 6 year olds. You figure it’d be more babysitting than anything, but these kids soaked in all the knowledge we were giving them.”
There aren’t a lot of 6U teams around the state of Indiana, and if there are, most of them just practice and don’t really play any games.
But the Impact team wanted to play in some games come the spring and summer.
“Really not much tournament opportunity at the 6U level during the spring,” McCrary said. “After talking with the parents and the coaches, we decided to play in the 7U tournaments.”
McCrary thought it’d be a challenge playing against a whole different age group, and he was right. Impact “took a beating” in the first couple of games they played, according to McCrary.
But the more they played, the more they got better. They played in over three 7U tournaments, and actually got a couple of wins toward the end.
So when the summer came, and they were able to compete against some 6U teams, Impact had its way.
The Impact went 15-0 against other 6U teams and won USSSA Coach Pitch State, USSSA Summer Classic and USSSA Rec League State.
Not to mention they run-ruled a good number of opponents en route to accomplishing all of those accolades.
“It’s a special group, it really is,” McCrary said. “Kids that love baseball, kids that want to be there. All of them, up and down the lineup, will be good at baseball.”
The 11 boys that make up the Brownstown 6U Impact baseball team are Landon Wischmeier, Rhett Spencer, Easton McCrary, Deacon Wayt, Elliot Lambring, Tatum Romilus, Zane Wheeler, Easton Berry, Rhett Myers, Nolan Wurtzburger and Cameron Davis.
After the successful summer they had, those boys will be moving up to 7U starting this fall.
“Once you get to 7U, there’s a lot more opportunities to play games,” McCrary said.
The opportunity to actually compete in games is what McCrary believes was best for the Impact’s development. He said the game time experience helped them tremendously.
Last year turned into what looked like a missed year for youth baseball to a special opportunity to learn, grow, win and play a game the kids enjoy.
“I was very surprised at the eagerness and how hungry they were,” McCrary said. “They learned and developed so much over the last eight months.”