The Carysbrook field was the sight a sunny welcome for Fluvanna’s 9-U baseball All-stars on July 27 as players eased into their homecoming from regional championships with a game of friends and family.

“I just want them to relax and enjoy each other. That’s kind of how they got where they’re at,” says head coach A.J. Bowman, who helped lead this group of Fluvanna’s finest ball players through a series of victories to win their division in the Cal Ripken League semifinals, launching the team into the finals for the first time in Fluvanna’s history.

Now that they are back on home turf, “the more they can be 9-year-olds, the better,” the coach says. “This is a chance to get together and not be in competition.”

This is Bowman’s second year heading the all-stars team—and it is the boys’ second brush with success. “We lost in the semifinals last year,” the coach says. And while Fluvanna lost to North Carolina in the championship this year, just getting into the championships is a significant milestone for the team.

Cameron Shields has been on the all-stars team five years in a row. “I like playing a lot,” says the 9-year-old, who feels this year’s team did “pretty good” in the finals. “They hustled really good. I’m proud of them.”

“It was truly a group effort,” Bowman says. “We had several kids pitch. If the top of the line-up didn’t score the bottom did. They’re so far advanced physically that we try to hold them to a standard, but we have to remember they are, and they should be, 9-year-olds.”

Team mom Michelle Algieri says her son Kyle wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else this summer. “This is a great group of kids. They mesh very well together and the kids feel the coaches are very fair, (the kids) enjoy them and that’s why they do so well. There’s not a lot of pressure.”

There is a great deal of support for the semifinalists who, with the help of parent Michael Brown, raised more than $6,000 in less than a week to help the league this year.

“And I have to give a big thank you for all the support, especially the donations,” Bowman says.

What’s next for the all-stars? The team has been featured in an upcoming segment of WINA Morning News: Saturday Edition and they will soon be guests on Varsity Lights with Jerry Miller on NBC 29 (Aug. 7).

Shields says he looks forward to making the all-stars team next year, and getting a home run.

Bowman says he’d love to coach the boys again.

“As long as they would ask me, I certainly would come back.” Until then, he hopes the kids “keep their attitudes up and keep playing hard, ’cause after all, it’s all contagious.”