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CHARLESTON -- Some have been easier than others, but in six of the last seven years the Charleston Fighting Squirrels have found a way to bring home a state title.
They'll get that chance again starting today when they open up the Senior Babe Ruth Missouri State Tournament at Hillhouse Park in Charleston.
"This is what we play for every year," Charleston head coach Michael Minner said. "We hope that everything we've done is good enough to have us prepared for what's going to be thrown at us this week."
One thing that's always changing is the depth of competition in the state tournament. After featuring nine teams in 2012, the tournament grew to 10 last season and will meet a new high of 14 teams this team around.
Helping spur this growth is slew of teams from southeast Missouri, including the Riverbend Ducks, East Prairie, Portageville and SEMO Strokers.
Unlike last year when they rolled into the tournament as odds on favorites with a dominant 41-9 record, the Squirrels look more human this time around.
They opened the year with a 24-3 start, but a second half slide has seen their record drop to 30-15 heading into the postseason.
"We started off great, then kind of hit a rough patch," Minner said. "But we play a tough schedule and challenge ourselves everyday. We hope everything we've done prepares us for this week.
"his is going to be one of the toughest state tournaments that Senior Babe Ruth has seen in a long time. There's probably nine or ten teams that can win it."
Though they lost some of last year's arms, including ace Trey Tigart, to age restrictions this summer, pitching once again looks to be Charleston's strong suit. They boast many of the area high school team's recent aces in Brad Potts, Doug Still and Cody Payne.
The well runs deep as Tim Fox, Matt Ulrich and Layton Tenkhoff are among others who've seen regular time on the mound during the season.
"We have a good pitching staff," Minner said. "We have 12 or 13 guys we can stick out there and we have a lot of confidence in. If our defense makes play, it makes our pitching staff look better."
As usual, this year's tournament will be double elimination and feature five games at Hillhouse Park both today and Friday.
The field is sorted out by Monday where just three teams remain. Two of those squads will advance to Tuesday's championship series starting at 5:30 p.m.
If the winner of the loser's bracket can best whoever comes out of the winer's bracket they'll be one final winner-takes-all game later that night.
The Squirrels cap the first night of action by taking on the Arch City Sidewinders from St. louis at 8 p.m.
Even with a loaded summer schedule, the Sidewinders are team Charleston had yet to come across and Minner expects a tough matchup.
Still expects to get the start after staying off the hill most the summer due to injuries. He pitched a scoreless inning against the Charleston Riverdogs on Tuesday as a tuneup.
"He's back feeling pretty good so we're going to throw him and get a couple innings work out of him," Minner said of Still. "Hopefully he puts us in a position to win. We'll see where it goes from there and play it by ear.
"We don't know much about Arch City. I know they had a pretty god league in St. Louis and there's quite a few good other teams coming as well. We'll just do what we do and play our game."
If Charleston can get by the Sidewinders they'll stay in the winner brackets, where they'll play the winner of Portageville/Senath-Hornersville at 3 p.m. on Friday.
If the Squirrels can once again capture the championship it will mark their eighth straight trip to the Midwest Plains Regional Tournament. Last season they emerged from regionals to to make a run all the way to the Senior Babe Ruth World Series quarterfinals.