Cal State Fullerton's Hank LoForte and Oregon State's Nick Madrigal won a Youth Baseball 10-under World Series together. Now they're competing for the College World Series.
It's been 10 years since a group of giddy kids from Elk Grove headed to Indiana to hit, run, throw and catch in a town they had neither heard of, nor could they spell -- Vincennes.
The Laguna Youth Baseball 10-under baseball team departed the Midwest in the summer of 2007 as Cal Ripken World Series champions. The group flew back to San Francisco, a good part of it on Cloud 9, and was treated to a luxury bus ride home and a police escort down Laguna Boulevard as crowning heroes.
Two of the team stars, Hank LoForte and Nick Madrigal, still have a World Series on their minds. And they return to the Midwest to face each other Saturday for bigger stakes.
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LoForte is the designated hitter for Cal State Fullerton, winner of two NCAA Regional tournaments this month, his surging club now bracing for national No. 1-ranked Oregon State in Omaha in a College World Series opener.
OSU's Nick Madrigal (3) has been an integral part of a Beaver team that is poised to make noise in Omaha.
In high school, LoForte and Madrigal became friendly if fierce program rivals, diminutive in size only. They towered with ability and work ethic, LoForte as a four-year starter at shortstop for Franklin High School and Madrigal a four-year anchor for the Elk Grove Thundering Herd at the same position.
"Wow, this brings back so many memories," said Emmett Smith, who was a Laguna Youth Baseball assistant coach along with Kevin Burke under head coach Scott Abraham. "We got back from that championship, TV interviews, a great homecoming, the community behind us.
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"And we're still following Hank and Nick. Those two playing each other in another World Series all these years later, who would've thought? It's a great story. We'll all be watching Saturday."
Cal State Fullerton's Hank LoForte has a childhood connection to Oregon State's Nick Madrigal.
"He could really hit, just bomb," Smith said. "And Nick was one of those kids who could play anywhere: shortstop, pitcher, catcher, second base, third base. He was that special. They're both special. You could see it even then. You could just tell. And those guys just don't know how to lose."
Laguna beat Bakersfield twice to win its regional championship to advance to Indiana, where the team went 5-0 and clobbered North Carolina 13-2 in the finals.
Laguna still has alums in the college game. Smith's son, Alex Smith, is an outfielder for Division III Capital University in Ohio. Brooks Day played this season for Cosumnes River College. Carlos Moseley played at Delta College. Matt Kelly is with Portland, and Ty Madrigal, Nick's twin brother, is at Saint Mary's.
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This article is written by Joe Davidson from The Sacramento Bee and was legally licensed via the Tribune Content Agency through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.
