The Great Britain National Team has confirmed that members of Herts have been selected in the preliminary roster of the GB Under-16 National Team.
Brodie Caress, Callum Vangundy and Jose Morillo attended the U16 GB Team tryouts last month and all three have been successful in being included in the squad. They played a key role in the Herts U14 All Stars’ success in finishing as runner-up in the National Championships this season. Caress and Morillo were also members of the Championship-winning Herts U14 team of 2010. For 13-year-old Vangundy, 2011 was his first ever season playing baseball so being selected in the preliminary GB team roster so early in his career is an exceptional achievement.
There will be additional evaluations in the Spring and the size of the GB U16 roster will be reduced further ahead of the GB Team’s various international games in 2012.
Herts players, Jake Caress, Jonny Compton-Weight and Kyle Lloyd-Jones attended the GB Under-19 Team tryouts. Compton-Weight and Lloyd-Jones were part of the GB U16 team in 2011 playing in the qualifier in Prague. For all three of them this was a first year jumping up into this older age group and so they had the difficult task of competing against players who are two or even three years older than them. They didn’t make the preliminary GB U19 team rosters, but the experience will hold them in good stead for the future. They have several more years in this GB Team age group so, with hard work this season and next, they can make a very strong claim for a place in the GB squad in coming years.
The progress of Herts players with the GB teams is a tremendous boost for Herts as an organisation. The Club is even more excited by the fact that there are many more talented players coming through the various age groups of the Herts youth system, from the U-11 and U-14 teams through to the U-17 age group. They will all be reporting back to the ballpark early in 2012 for another exciting season of Herts Baseball. The club usually experiences a wave of new players joining the youth teams in time for Spring Training. Any interested players, boys and girls between 6 and 16 years of age, from complete beginners to advanced players can join the Herts baseball youth teams (click here for more details).