State Line Stars 13U makes waves with Gulf Coast World Series title

Todd Sedlar has a different approach to building a travel baseball team — go local.

It's not a radical approach, said Sedlar, head coach of the State Line Stars 13U program. But it does stand out.

"The competition and teams we play against, some of them will actually fly kids in to play," Sedlar said. "They pull from hundreds of miles to get kids."

Sedlar, a Temperance resident, prefers what's in his own backyard.

State Line Stars is built with kids from southeast Michigan and northwest Ohio.

"We pull from about a 35-mile radius," Sedlar said. "We're created in this local area. And most of them have been together for 3-4 years now."

That hasn't hurt the team's ability to compete against the best.

Sedlar's team recently closed out its summer travel season with a 48-7-1 overall record and its eighth tournament title. The Stars claimed the championship in the Perfect Game Gulf Coast World Series July 12-15 in Destin, Fla.

The State Line Stars won tournaments this summer in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, collecting eight championship rings and finishing runner-up for a ninth.

"We're a bunch of local boys making some waves on a national scale, making a name for ourselves," Sedlar said. "The teams we compete against and how they run their organizations – what we did was pretty special in comparison."

There were 13 kids on the State Line Stars roster this year, most of whom have been playing ball together since they were 9 years old — Bryce Besgrove, Ray Campos, Keagen Dixon, Landon Echelberry, Tre Eitniear, Owen Lloyd, Landyn Maly, Brady Maxwell, Corbin Miller, Cashton Sedlar, Jett Smith, Brayden Toneff, and Nate Trunck.

The State Line Stars are young for their level. The team is composed mostly of seventh graders with a couple sixth graders also in the mix. Every player on the team gets a chance to step the plate – another oddity for travel teams.

"A lot of teams have POs, which is pitching only, so kids only show up when they pitch," Sedlar said. "Our entire year we batted our entire roster. That's unheard of."

The Perfect Game Gulf Coast World Series in Florida was the biggest tournament of the season for the Stars.

The week of festivities also included skills showcases where players performed in combine-like drills. The boys were tested on their running speed, bat speed, exit velocity, infield and outfield throws, and pitching. Sedlar said that Perfect Game uses the information to build a profile on each athlete.

"It all gets added to your profile when you go to these showcases," he said. "A lot of times that's how college recruiting happens. ... Perfect Game is like the mecca of baseball at the youth and high school levels."

In the tournament, the Stars went 5-0, including twice beating the No. 29-ranked team in the country in the semifinals and finals. The Stars outscored their opponents 42-14.

Sedlar the pressure and atmosphere of the highly-competitive tournament was a big draw.

"We wanted to push them," Sedlar said. "We always wanted to play in a Perfect Game tournament and we felt we had the team that could go down there and compete and make some waves."

Sedlar, who played baseball the University of Toledo, said he likes seeing how the team responds to that kind of stress. Win or lose, it's an opportunity for growth.

"Development, development, development is what youth baseball should be about," he said. "If you win tournaments, that's great, but at the end of the day, my goal as head coach is to make them as prepared as possible for the next level. Right now, that's high school, but I played college baseball and I want to give them a glimpse of that as well."

Training the mental part of being an athlete is every bit as important for Sedlar.

The team's training starts in November but the players spend very little time actually throwing baseballs around until January.

Sedlar also bought two books for his team to read and dissect: "Relentless" and "Winning" by Tim Grover. Grover was the personal trainer for Michael Jordan and later Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade.

"I think that really helped them work on the mental aspects of the game," Sedlar said. "This game is 90 percent mental. We really try to focus on that and a lot of the kids took a liking to it."

Sedlar and his assistant coach Chad Smith started the State Line Stars travel program to be different. There are four teams in the the organization with plans to expand to seven next year.

Sedlar has coached the same group since they were 9 years old.

"I really knew a couple years ago we were building something special," he said. "I wasn't sure of the timing of it. I didn't say at 13 years old we'd be winning this and this, but the development and maturity ended up catching up to us. I could tell in the offseason we would have a good year with the kids we had and how hard they worked."

The State Line Stars are currently unranked nationally, but that could change. Along with their tournament success this summer, the team picked up four wins against nationally-ranked teams and and eight wins against state-ranked teams. That included victories over the No. 1-ranked teams in both Ohio and West Virginia, and the No. 3 team in Indiana.

"I could see our growth throughout the year and it just kept going," Sedlar said. "We had our hiccups. We had seven losses, but of those seven losses, I don't think there was a team that was better than us. But they're 13 years old and sometimes it doesn't go your way. That happens. A little adversity helps you grow."

Most of the Stars' players will return next year. The team hopes to win more rings, but Sedlar hopes they also take the time to simply enjoy the experience.

"The expectations are set high, but there's a fine line in setting high expectations and believing in them, but not putting too much pressure on them," he said. "We need to go out there and compete, but have fun doing it."

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: State Line Stars 13U makes waves with Gulf Coast World Series title