Although the regional tournaments have wrapped up for some of Cranston Western’s All-Star teams, there is still one more unit that is on the diamond as the 8-U youngsters continue to impress this summer.

The 8-U club has participated in five tournaments to date, winning three of them including Warwick North’s Sally Eddy Tournament, as well as the Nipmuc Fourth of July Classic and Battle for the Banner in Massachusetts.

This is the first season that the players have competed alongside one another as it is the league’s youngest All-Star team. Coach Marc Pelagalli has been excited to see the players’ commitment to the sport and improvement in the past few weeks in which they’ve played nearly 30 games in total.

“It’s a great group of boys that are really beginning to learn the game of baseball. They’re little sponges. Since day one, they’ve been tremendous and you have really seen the growth and development with the more they have played and the more situations they’ve been exposed to. They’ve really come together,” said Pelagalli.

Pelagalli is hopeful that the 8-U experience will help the players get their feet wet against top-level competition and prepare them for the future tournaments in which they will represent the league.

“It’s great to be able to play more than 50 percent of games against out-of-state teams because they see that they belong. They see different sized teams, different levels, they listen and do their best and I think it is going to prepare them tremendously for the future,” said Pelagalli. “You can see the benefits of it already, they’re already battle tested as 8-year-olds.”

The CWLL 8-U All-Star team includes: Colten Pelagalli, John Palazzo, Madden Bank, Logan Della Ventura, Dominic Ricci, Paulie Okolowitcz, Andrew Tavares, Jameson Lage, Xavier Cano, Luca Mariotti, Cole Sweeney and Kenny Hopkins.