Keystone, Keystone, Keystone …. Anyone Confused?

LOCK HAVEN – Every year we encounter readers, friends and family that become quite confused as to what is really going on with our local Little League baseball teams. Some days it seams like their are dozen different Keystone baseball … or Clinton Softball … all-star teams competing. There isn’t quite a dozen different teams … but almost.

In all, there are six different divisions in Little League baseball and five divisions for softball.

The various divisions are broken down as follows.

8-10 Division for players ages 8-10 years.

9-11 Division for players ages 9-11 years.

The Little League Division (sometimes referred to as the ‘Major’ division) for players ages 10-12.

These first three divisions are all played on a field that uses the dimensions of 46 feet from the pitcher’s mound to home plate and 60 feet between the bases.

Then there is the Intermediate 50/70 Division for players age 13. This division was designed to allow younger players who are too old for regular Little League but old enough to move on a play a larger field but not quite ready for a full sized baseball field. The field for the Intermediate division is 50 feet from the pitcher’s mound to home plate and 70 feet between the bases.

Junior Division is for players ages 13-14.

Senior Division is for players ages 15-16.

The Junior and Senior divisions are played on a full size field with the distance between pitcher’s mound to home plate spans 60 feet, six inches and 90 feet between bases.

Softball has the same divisions by age breakdown except for Intermediate because all softball, regardless of age is played on a standard 45/60 Little League field dimensions.

Now it gets really interesting.

Each age division has it’s own playoff system where local leagues select all-stars to represent their their community in the district playoffs.

The local leagues are established mostly by school district borders, though some exceptions do apply.

Our local league in Clinton County is largely based upon the Keystone Central School District boundaries for both Keystone Little League Baseball and Clinton Softball.

Each state sets up their own playoff system to produce a statewide champion for each division.

In Pennsylvania there are 32 districts that comprise 8 sections. Each district conducts a tournament to produce a champion. That champ moves on th the section tournament. Each section then conducts a tournament to produce a champion. Those 8 section champs then advance to the state championship tournament.

Once a state champion is produced for the Major Division (ages 10-12) in Pennsylvania, they move on to the Mid-Atlantic tournament in Bristol, CT. The team that comes out on top there will represent the Mid-Atlatic at the Little League World Series in Williamsport.

The younger age groups do not have an official Little League Inc. sanctioned advancement for play beyond a state championship, though their are several invitational tournaments the state champs can enter at their discretion but there is no World Series for those divisions.

There are official World Series events in both baseball and softball for the older Intermediate, Junior and Senior divisions held at various location throughout the U.S.

Our local Little League District is comprised of Clinton and Lycoming counties and is designated District 12. Every member neighborhood league is permitted to enter an all-star team for district play. The number of teams participating may vary for each division depending upon if each local league enters teams for each division.

District 12 is part of Section 3 which also includes:

District 13 which includes Columbia, Montour, Northumberland and Juniata counties.

District 15 which includes Potter, Bradford, Tioga, Sullivan, Susquehanna and Wyoming counties.

District 24 which includes Schuylkill county and portions of Dauphin and Berks counties.

The state championship tournaments are held at various locations across the state. The hosts for those events are local leagues that volunteer to host the events.

This year for the three Keystone baseball teams that qualified for their respective official Little League state tourneys, the locations were:

8-10 – Indiana, PA.

9-11 – Bradford, PA.

Major (10-12) – Berwick, PA.

Clinton 9-11 Softball qualified for the state tournament in West Newton, PA.

Then to add even further confusion, Keystone also has tournament teams comprised of players that wish to continue their season but didn’t quite make the cut for the official all-star teams. These are usually designated as 12u, 10u, etc. which means age 12 and under, age 10 and under, etc. Yes, these tourney teams are quite successful too repressing our community well.

Still confused?

Don’t feel bad … we get confused some days too.

For reference you can see the breakdown of the various districts and sections in Pennsylvania here: Official PA Little League Site

You can review the various tournament sites and information here: Pennsylvania Tournament Site