2024 LLIWS Preview: Vine Ingle, Macon, Georgia

I have the privilege of calling a Little League World Series once again this year! This will mark my third consecutive call of the Intermediate 50/70 Baseball World Series, held from July 28-August 4 in Livermore, California. It's for 13-year-olds, played on a field slightly larger than Little League but still smaller than Junior League (50 feet from the pitcher's mound to home plate, 70 feet between the bases). Following this tournament and its qualifiers closely over the last three years, I've come to expect fantastic action and stories, and I'm looking forward to bringing them to you again this year!

The 2024 Intermediate World Series will air on ESPN+, and I will lay out the backstory for one of the 12 competing teams each day from now until the tournament's start on July 28. I hope you'll read along and remember a nugget here and there when you watch the tournament!

Vine Ingle, Macon, Georgia

League:
Vine Ingle Little League
Location:
Macon, Georgia
Championships:

Georgia District 5
Georgia
Southeast Region
Record: 8-1
Date Qualified: July 23
Noteworthy:
1st Georgia representative at 50/70 World Series.

1st baseball World Series appearance for Vine Ingle (reached Senior League Softball World Series last year)
Coaches: Harry DeHart, Chad Hickman, Tevin Chambliss

We get used to seeing some of the familiar leagues that qualify for World Series events year after year, but some of the most special stories come from the first-timers, achieving beyond anything their league has ever accomplished.

One such story this year is, simultaneously, one of the oldest and most established leagues in the field. Vine Ingle Little League, of Macon, Georgia, was established in 1954 and has been a mainstay of baseball in the area. But it had never sent a team to a Little League World Series event until its 16-year-old softball team qualified last year, and it follows that up one year later with its highest-achieving baseball team ever.

Vine Ingle had stopped its teenage baseball programs several years ago, but one of the many league alumni involved, coach Chad Hickman, remembered how much fun he had playing in the teenage divisions of Little League when he was in high school. Together with manager Harry DeHart, a league legend who retired from coaching 12-year-old major baseball in 2015 but keeps getting pulled back in, they called area kids who had played at younger ages and offered them the chance to play teenage Little League. Before they knew it, they had 58 players committed to field five teams, with a waiting list beyond that.

That built the robust infrastructure for a 13-year-old all-star team that has only a handful of kids from the 12-year-old team that went out in district play last year. Not many Georgia leagues field teenage teams, so the path to the Southeast Region tournament in Kernersville, North Carolina, was fairly simple. Once there, however, they ran up against history: Florida teams had won six of the last seven Southeast titles, and unbeaten Destin, Florida reached the title game unbeaten after beating Vine Ingle 5-2.

A deep pitching staff allowed Vine Ingle to keep throwing out solid arms despite having used two of its aces in the early rounds. The elimination bracket final saw a second one-run game of the tournament against South Durham, North Carolina. Leading 3-1 after Jayden Cannon (11 strikeouts) exhausted his pitch count, Vine Ingle elected to pull lefty Ross Greer in the 7th at the 20-pitch threshold to keep him eligible to pitch the championship game. After a wild pitch made it 3-2, another pitch to the backstop gave South Durham a chance to tie, but Vine Ingle corralled the ball and applied the tag at home plate in one of the tournament's most dramatic finishes!

The region championship game marked the third consecutive year a one-loss team beat the unbeaten team, perhaps making a case for a format change, but it worked just fine for Vine Ingle, as it came from behind to beat Destin 8-3. And maybe history is on its side after all: The only non-Florida team to win the region since 2015 was McCalla, Alabama in 2019, and McCalla went on to win the World Series championship.

Road to Livermore
Georgia District 5
June 22	at Chatham County, Savannah	W	10-0 (5)
June 22	at Chatham County, Savannah	W	20-0 (4)
Georgia
July 6	at Peachtree City	W	29-1 (5)
July 6	at Peachtree City	W	24-1 (3)
Southeast Region
July 19	South Durham NC	W	2-1
July 20	Alexandria VA	W	14-2 (5)
July 22	Destin FL	L	2-5
July 22	South Durham NC (elim bracket final)	W	3-2
July 23	Destin FL (final)	W	8-3
Intermediate Baseball World Series
July 28	MOT, Middletown DE	W	6-4
July 29	Scripps Ranch, San Diego CA	L	9-12
July 30	HYR, Georgetown IN (elim)	W	6-4
July 31	Livemore CA (elim)	L	4-5