Eden Prairie American Legion Team Wins World Series
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (WCCO) -- An Eden Prairie baseball team is exhausted and excited Wednesday night. They won the American Legion World Series late Tuesday night in an extra innings thriller, and they're already back in town savoring the memories.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, Mari Bray has millions. Mari and her son Adam got back from the Legion World Series, started downloading, saving pictures and keeping memories.
"I'm going to look back at these photos when I'm older," said Adam, an Eden Prairie pitcher, "and just live the dream again when I'm looking at them, and just thinking about how much fun we had."
It was fun for the team winning the American Legion World Series in front of 6,000 people in Shelby, North Carolina. They did it in a 13-inning thriller after finishing second last year. When it was over, the kids from Eden Prairie went wild.
"It was just a world of emotions," said second baseman Tony Skjeft. "Just going crazy. There were people, just a big dog pile."
"Five, ten years down the road, I'll look back at that and say wow, I can't believe we did that," said first baseman Tyler Peterson. "Two years in a row to do what we did and take care of it this year is unbelievable."
It's been a whirlwind of text messages and congratulations since then, flying back home early Wednesday morning in their bright yellow championship shirts.
"We got all eyes on us," said Peterson. "Eighteen guys walking through with bright yellow shirts on, reading what it says and saying national champions on it, so it's unbelievable."
The champions brought home their banner and plenty of souvenirs, but had to leave their trophy behind for a while because it wouldn't fit on the plane.
"The tournament director said he'd bring it to Fed Ex in the morning," said coach Scott Hackett. "And get it to us as soon as they can. So hopefully it gets here in the next day or two."
They should have that trophy here by Thursday for a big championship celebration. It'll go from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Chanhassen Legion. Eden Prairie doesn't have a Legion of its own, so the one in Chanhassen has been one of the team's sponsors.
