By Lonnie Turner

The Dillon Kiwanis Dixie Youth Major League District 10 Champions will travel to Florence this coming weekend to take part in the State Tournament at the Freedom Florence Sports Complex.

In first round action that begins at 11:30 Saturday morning, the Kiwanis All Stars will face the team from Jefferson of Chesterfield County near Pageland. Even though the town has a population of just 753, according to the 2010 census, the youth activities are comparable to towns much bigger in size. The District 5 team made it to the State by defeating Hartsville twice in their District Tournament last week.

There’s not much in the way of statistics for Jefferson, but beating Hartsville the way they did, proves one thing…they are very talented and they look forward to playing the team from Dillon. When the young people get out of elementary school, Central High School serves the high school population and all you readers know what kind of rivalry the two areas have become in football. Should be interesting, so take the little trip to Florence Saturday morning.

The opening ceremonies will take place Friday evening at Freedom Park if you’d like to take in that part of the State Tournament festivities.

The Kiwanis All Stars steamrolled through the District 10 tournament putting up impressive numbers. In four games, the team outscored their opponents 41-3, pounding out 47 hits in 110 times to the plate, including five home runs. Bo-Bo McKinnon, who batted 0.407 during the regular season for the Physicians Healthcare Yankees, leads the team with eight hits in 11 plate appearances for a 0.727 batting average. The scrappy little Yankee hit his first career home run in the championship game against Maple Park and made a diving catch in the same game that was suitable for an ESPN moment.

Noah Carter of the Dillon Dental Giants, who led the regular season with a 0.656 batting average, is second on the batting chart, hitting at a 0.636 clip, and leads the team with two homers in post season play, both of which came in the last two games of the District Tourney. The first was his first career grand slam blast and on the following night, he hit a three-run shot. In all, the Kiwanis All Stars have connected for five round-trippers in the last four games. Cooper Lane, who had two in the regular season with the Internal Medicine Hurricanes, has one and the other was hit by Nick Evans, who played for the Giants.

The top five in hitting during post-season play are McKinnon; Carter; Lane, 0.545; Tristian Brigman, Feed & Farm Rangers, 0.444; and Barnes Causey, Dillon Meat Center Reds, 0.444. Nick Evans is hitting 0.417, followed by Ahmari Huggins-Bruce of the Yankees with a 0.400; Collin Hamilton, of the Reds, 0.333; Jared Ivey of the Reds, 0.250; Jared Darmon of the Hurricanes, 0.200; and Trent Johnson of the Rangers, .167. John Rourke, who hit at a batting average of 0.514 during the regular season for the Rangers, was injured in a practice just prior to the District Tourney and did not play.

Brad Sawyer, who coached the Giants, the regular season champions, is the All Star head coach and his assistants are John-John Brigman of the Rangers and Jamie Hamilton of the Reds.