Nanuet Little League Concludes a Successful Regular Season and Gears Up for the Fall

Though the competitive regular season for Nanuet Little League has ended, players and coaches are gearing up for the fun-filled instructional Fall season.

In the first line of the Little Leage Pledge for parents and volunteers, they promise to "teach all children to play fair and do their best."  They conclude by pledging to "praise good effort despite the outcome of the game."  In essence, they acknowledge that, win or lose, the Little League experience is about coming out to work hard to the best of your ability, learn not only how to play the game, but good sportsmanship as well, and finally to simply have fun. 

In pursuit of this goal, the NLL not only makes sure that everyone has the right attitude, but they also make sure that every player has a chance to play, enjoy themselves, and win.

  "We are one of the only leagues that redrafts players," said NLL Vice President Brian Condon, whose titles include Softball Director and Tee Ball Coordinator.  "We really believe that each player should have a chance to play and win and compete, so we work hard to make sure that talent is spread out evenly across the teams."  While some leagues may get too caught up in winning and turn one regular season team into essentially an all star team, Nanuet is among those who hold true to what is best for the kids by creating fair play.

Such a positive experience is exactly what the NLL strives for year after year, and, thanks to their effort, this is exactly what they have accomplished again in the 2010 season.  According to Condon, "We had a great season and the kids really enjoyed themselves.  About 600 girls and boys signed up from Tee Ball all the way up to Juniors at the age of 12."

This regular season went gone quite well for the NLL, with all their teams having fun and competing well.  Though they only had one team that moved out of the district tournament, all of their teams put up a great effort against very tough opponents and were highly successful overall in this 2010 season. 

Rockland is home to much of the top talent in the state, so to compete here is a testament to any organization and its athletes. 

"With the wealth of talent that we have in this county, the toughest battle is for the District 18 title," said Condon.  "It's just a credit to the whole county that the district tournament really is the toughest battle and if you make it out of the district, you have a good shot at winning the sectionals."

Their standout team this year, the 10-11 year old softball team, has returned home to Nanuet victorious after winning the state championship title.  In winning the district, they progressed onto the Section Four Little League tournament, which they won to move onto the state championships, where five teams competed.

"We had never won states until three years ago in 2008 when we hosted and won," said Condon in an interview preceding the championship game.  "Now in 2010, we're real close to winning states again."  And close they were, as shortly after the girls were crowned New York State champions.  For the 10-11 year old age group, this is the highest title, as only the 11-12 year olds play in regionals to move onto a Little League World Series.

Now that the 10-11 year olds have finished up their season, the league is looking forward to the Fall season, which runs from September through October.  Interested players sign up and are assigned to teams as they do and in that order.  This is due to the much smaller enrollment in the fall and is done simply to field teams.  Once teams are created, then practice can begin and finally games towards the middle of September.

In the fall league, teams compete against teams from other leagues  in the district, however, the focus is on learning rather than on competition. It gives the kids a chance to play while getting more instruction throughout a game than in the regular season.  For instance, coaches will be allowed the option of calling a timeout to instruct a player on their footwork as a catcher or their stance as a batter, which would not be allowed in the regular season.

In pursuit of keeping the focus on learning and away from simply competing, standings are not kept throughout the season.

Once the fall season concludes, the kids get to tryout for the regular season and the teams are then chosen.  They then get the chance in the winter to focus on improving their skills during clinics that isolate a specific aspect of the game at a time.  In addition to this, the local schools give the kids gym time to prepare for the upcoming season.  Finally, in April, it's time for the players to show what they have accomplished over the year as the regular season begins once again.