The 17U Watsonville Aggies baseball team, which features 11 local athletes — six of whom attend San Benito High School — has earned a spot in the Mickey Mantle World Series.
The team is comprised of 16-year-old players from Watsonville, Salinas, Morgan Hill, Hollister, and Santa Cruz. San Benito High School has the most players, with six. The Aggies participated in the AABC NorCal Qualifier at Hartnell College and CSU, Monterey Bay. During this three-day tournament, the team won six straight games, the first of which was played with just eight players.
The Aggies came from behind several times during their road to the local qualifier championship, which they won in extra innings. That championship earned them a berth in the West Regional Qualifier in West Covina just three days later. They then traveled to Northview High School in West Covina, where they won another three straight games to clinch the Western Region championship.
Throughout their journey to the World Series, these teammates (many of whom are rivals during the school year) showed their resiliency, After winning the extra-innings championship game at the Western Region Tournament, the team and their parents quickly realized what this meant: In less than two weeks (July 26-31) they would have to fly across the country to Waterbury, Conn. to compete against 12 of the best teams from the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.
This is a major tournament for the Waterbury area, where the entire town is involved in the event and where the Aggies will represent the Central Coast in their quest for a championship.
San Benito High School athletes on the Aggies (with graduation year)
- Joshua Cutler (2018)
- Marcos Flores (2017)
- Gio Giannotta (2018)
- Matt Harris (2018)
- Zach Livingston (2018)
- Ryan Platero (2018)
