Neil Snoeberger Three members of Delphi's Sectional-winning baseball team have earned spots on the Hoosier North roster for the upcoming 2008 Colt World Series, which opens tonight, Wednesday, at Loeb Stadium in Lafayette.

Delphi juniors-to-be Tanner Cripe and Neil Snoeberger, along with sophomore-to-be Austin Hawn successfully made it through the tryout process in early June to become one of the final 17 players chosen for the team made of players from seven area high schools, including Lafayette Jeff, Mc- Cutcheon, Logansport, Benton Central, Crawfordsville and Frontier.

Hoosier North has since played nearly 40 games and tournaments throughout the Midwest, starting with a tournament near Dayton, Ohio, on June 12 and continuing through the Colt World Series August 6-13.

Unlike the automatic bid that is reserved for a "Local Host" team from Lafayette, Hoosier North had to earn its berth into the Colt League's annual signature tournament as the "Area Host" team by winning the "Harry Bradway Classic," a tournament played in Loeb Stadium July 17-20 featuring other Colt League teams from around North-Central Indiana and named after the local Colt World Series leader of over 30 years.

Tanner Cripe Bradway was instrumental in forming the Colt League in 1958 for those players who were too old for the Pony League and had no other options for summer baseball at their age.

The current Colt World Series field is comprised of ten teams of 15 and 16-year-olds who play under the PONY Baseball, Inc. blanket.

In addition to the two area teams, the tournament will feature international teams from Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Czech Republic, as well as teams from the United States representing Greensboro, N.C., Central, Mich., McAllen, Texas, and Covina, Calif.

The tournament will start with an Olympic-style format, where the ten teams will be divided into two divisions of five and will be assured of at least four games by playing each of the other teams in their own pool once.

Division assignments are based on order of finish in the previous year's World Series play, and the first and second place finishers in each division then advance to the semi-finals on Tuesday in what then becomes a singleelimination tournament of the final four teams, with tiebreaking events in place.

Austin Hawn The winners of the games from the top two finishers in each pool advance to the Gold Medal Championship finale scheduled for next Wednesday night.

Although the tournament officially starts on Wednesday with games scheduled at 2:30, 5 and 7:30 p.m., Hoosier North is not scheduled to take the field until Thursday at 7:30 p.m. against Central Michigan.

The Area Host team will then continue pool play competition on Saturday at 5 p.m. vs. Greensboro, on Sunday at 5 p.m. vs. Grand Ledge, Mich., and on Monday at 7:30 vs. Covina.

Hoosier North is coached by Matt Huckstep, a 2001 McCutcheon graduate who is entering his third season as a Benton Central assistant, with assistance from Tyler Rosenbarger, Kyle Rush and Tyler Ness.

Lafayette's Loeb Stadium in the Columbian Park complex first became the host site for the Colt World Series in 1969 and has been the location of choice for every year since a one-year hiatus in 1972 when the tournament was moved to Tampa, Florida.

HOOSIER NORTH ROSTER

# Player		Position	High School
1	Sean Ford	OF	McCutcheon
3	Jon Tierney	SS	Logansport
4	Mitch O'Malley	C	Benton Central
5	Jon-Marc Ream	OF	Frontier
7	Austin Hawn	OF/P/1B	Delphi
8	Neil Snoeberger	2B	Delphi
11	Dylan Sterrett	P/INF	Frontier
12	Gaven Schreckengast	C	McCutcheon
13	Austin Evans	C	Crawfordsville
14	Tanner Cripe	1B/P	Delphi
15	Brian Chenoweth	P/INF	McCutcheon
17	Nathan Champion	OF/P/1B	Logansport
19	Tanner Rosenbarger	OF/P	Benton Central
23	Travis Demerly	3B/P	Frontier
25	Grant Ream	INF	Frontier
30	Steven Rice	P/1B	Crawfordsville
33	Josh McQueary	P	Lafayette Jeff

Manager—Matt Huckstep Assistant coaches—Tyler Rosenbarger, Kyle Rush, Tyler Ness