Sports CORRESPONDENT

Buzz state champs ! Buzz national consolation round champs !

That is the Federal Way Buzz, or the Seattle Baseball Academy Buzz.

The Buzz went 43-8 overall and won their Mickey Mantle league with a 23-4 record. They also won some prestigious area tournaments. and then won the state tournament and won the consolation bracket of the CABA World Series.

Mostly, the Buzz players hail from this area, but some Auburn, Sumner, Burien players also help out. Half the team's players come from one of Federal Way's four high schools, or Stadium or Bellarmine, but those players also live in the area.

Nice to know then isn't it that the Buzz were beating teams from bigger draw areas mostly at state and then much bigger draws all of the time at the CABA World Series.

Well, now that really does say a lot.

"We lost to Wisconsin in our second game and the coach for that team told us they drew kids from all over the state of Wisconsin," said coach Brian Bixenman, helping out the Buzz along with Ron Johnson and Mike Nadeau.

After state, yes, the Buzz, with players from one state and add in only Puget Sound area players, headed to the sweet savannah of Georgia to play the best in the nation qualifiers from 34 other states in the USA.

First game at the CABA prestigious national tournament for the Buzz was against a Pennsylvania All Stars team, a 7-3 win for the Buzz. In that game one win, Brian's son, Cole from Todd Beamer, was the player of note. He swatted the ball out of the park to break a 3-3 tie.

The Wisconsin game, game two, was one that was better left unsaid, and certainly not remembered.

David Macy of Highline pitched against Wisconsin.

"He pitched good for us, they only scored one or two runs in four innings," said coach Bixenman.

Wisconsin gave the local boys a fine "how do you do'" when Macy left the mound with his Buzz team up by a few runs.

"We led by eight runs in the middle innings and then they scored two runs in the sixth and five in the seventh to come back and beat us," said Bixenman.

"We took David out, we should not have pulled David out. That was a mistake we made," said Bixenman, humbly. The Buzz lost to Wisconsin, 15-14.

Game three did nothing of a good nature to help the Buzz recover from the sadness of the Wisconsin comeback loss. Add in the 100 degree heat and high humidity to boot and, well, it's easy to see that back-to-back games in that kind of weather for players used to rusting not tanning, would lose game three.

"We played 17 innings straight pretty much. After we played the Wisconsin game we came right back pretty much a half hour or hour later and played the next third game against the East Cobb Titans All Stars."

They did and they lost and Bixenman noted that it was 100 degree heat that started to sweat the brows of these kids.

East Cobb, the No. 1 seed and host team from Georgia, beat the Buzz, 8-4.

Now, talking again about "drawing kids" aforementioned, yes, this Georgia team might as well have been called the Georgia Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Pennsylvania Titans.

"They drew kids from at least four or five states," said Bixenman.

But Pennsylvania? For a Georgia-based team? Yet, the Buzz competed.

In fact that East Cobb team that ended up taking fourth place out of these state champion qualifiers from states all across the great U.S.A. had words for Bixenman, Nadeau and Johnson afterward.

"Their coach told us after we lost that their (East Cobb) pitcher said he couldn't get a fastball by us. He said we had a really good hitting team."

Now the players, and, let's note these are sophomores but already top players in the South Puget Sound League.

Davis Johnson, of Federal Way High School hit best at the Series, going .500 and also getting on base for a .570 average. The next best batter was Brock Gates of Decatur, hitting .480 with four doubles, two triples, a home run, nine RBI, and nine runs scored. Then another hitter was Cole Bixenman, hitting .410, with 12 runs scored and six stolen bases, a home run and two doubles to boot. Another high batting average hitter was Beau Didier, leading the team in the WS in RBIs with 11 as well as knocking two balls over the fence combined with four doubles and a .400 average overall. Still one more to mention, doing double duty, was Brad Carter, like Didier on the 12-and-under Little League district 10 champs a few moons ago, who pitched strong in eight innings. Zero earned runs strong. There were a lot of other good efforts, like from Macy, who as duly already noted pitched strong in the Wisconsin game before coaches took him out with a commanding lead for his team that soon became uncommanding.

Macy threw eleven innings strong, with only a few runs earned against him as did Stadium's Cody Goodfellow with 13 innings on the mound and only a handful of runs scored against him. Dustin Martin pitched a good eight innings too, Bixenman noted.

It was a good season for this Federal Way Buzz team that plays out of the West Hill of Auburn at the Seattle Baseball Academy. As said earlier, they went 23-4 in the Mickey Mantle league, winning it. They also won the Kent Memorial Bulldogs tournament and the Portland Invitational wood bat tourney.

Then came the state and CABA national tournaments.

After the loss to East Cobb, somehow, someway, this Buzz team quit feeling the heat, literally.

"They got used to it after awhile," said Bixenman.

They beat a Michigan All Stars team their fourth game and then Virginia, and Illinois, and Kentucky, and...

"We won six straight games after we lost to Wisconsin and then East Cobb back to-back," said Bixenman.

That was good enough for....

"We won the consolation bracket of the CABA World Series," he said.

These players are already being talked to by college scouts and they are only sophomores in high school.

The season is through but already more is in store and the community could benefit from the investment this Under-16 Buzz team wants to do.

"We want to put together a camp for high school kids in the area," said Bixenman. "We want to be able to mentor some younger kids. We want to give back to the community for the opportunities that we have had that a lot of kids don't get to have."

Other players are Thomas Jefferson's Mike Keller, Bellarmine's Mitch Olson, and Didier, Auburn's Troy Scott, Auburn Riverside's Matt Burroughs, who hit .390, with three doubles and a HR in the WS. There is also Sumner's Cory Waugh, Emerald Ridge's Kyle Leads, and Tahoma's Kirk Wetmore.

The next season is days away, Aug. 28. Check out www. eteamz.com/sbabuzz. Also a phone number for those interested in trying out for this high-level of baseball is Nadeau's number of 253-632-1005.