For the second year in a row the West End All Stars are trying to grab the ring on the championship merry-go-round at the Babe Ruth World Series, this year being held at Loudon, Virginia.

Webb Weekly talked with West End Manager, George Lepley and his coaches, Joe Dunn and Lynn Datres, as well as league president, Jim Winder as the team prepared for its quest for championship gold.

"This has been a really great experience for everyone. This is a great group of young men that are really focused on the goal of winning a world title. They are a real veteran team and that is a real advantage because they have been through it before and know what it takes to excel and win," Lepley said. "This is a real battle tested team that has had to come back from the adversity of losing some early games in both the state and regional tournaments.

He said that adversity in some of their early games helped the team, really find out what they were made of and how they could deal with difficulty.

"Our guys would always pick up each other whenever something went wrong. They never hung their heads but would always come back and make good things happen for them," Lepley said. "The one weakness we might have is a lack of the killer instinct. We got ahead early in some games and let some teams come back and make the games more interesting and more tense than they should have been."

He cited a number of games in which they would get a two or three-run lead only to have the opposing team come back and tie things up and in some cases force extra innings.

Lepley is an old hand at coaching and managing at West End. He had been doing so for about 26 years. He had the pleasure of coaching his son for a couple of seasons in the late 1990s. In recent years he has been coaching West End’s All Star teams, successfully capturing several state and regional titles.

He said there is a "great chemistry" on this team that is responsible in large part for the team’s success. Lepley stated that a lot of the members of the team played with and against each other for a number of years in different leagues such as Little League or high school ball and in other sports as well. The players in many cases were friends with each other before they came on this team.

One of Lepley’s assistant coaches is Joe Dunn, who has been coaching at West End since 2001 said "The guys on this team are a great bunch and are very coachable, which makes our job so much easier. They all know what it takes to win and are willing to do the work that is required to win. We seem to be very deep in talent which comes in very handy during the long tournament road."

This is the second year that Lynn Datres has been a coach for the West End All Stars and he finds it every bit as interesting and exciting as his first year.

"In a lot of ways it is a lot harder to get back to this level for a second time because it seems like we almost have a target on our backs and everybody is gunning for us to knock us off," Datres said. "Their enthusiasm and cohesiveness as a team is infectious and helps them get through this tough competition. The team now has to deal with the adversity of losing one of our best players, Jimmy Webb, to injury. He has a .700 on-base percentage and has really helped to spark our offense as well as our defense. Nick DiFrancesco has really stepped in and done a good job and hopefully he will continue to do so."

Jim Winder, president of the West End League smiled broadly when he spoke of what this team has meant to the league.

"They have really raised the profile of our league and have shown that this is a great league to play for," Winder said. "We have players from Loyalsock, South Williamsport, the Jersey Shore area and Williamsport itself. It has been very enjoyable to watch these players come together and play well for a common goal. The work that our players and coaches put in is really something to see and shows their level of dedication."

As you read these words the West End All Stars will either be still in full pursuit of their championship Holy Grail or will be winding down and getting ready to return home, a team that is bloody but unbowed.

In any event they have still had a wonderful and exciting time that will stay with them for the rest of their lives and leaving 　a legacy of exciting and well played games that gave the players and families and friends a great feeling of pride and accomplishment.

(From left) Front row: Rylan Whitmer, Carter Alexander, Kyle Hoover, Tom Baggett; Second Row: Manager Scott Niklaus, Coach Ryan Buchner, Anthony Caruso, Bailey Young, Marc McClain, Noah Esposito, Ian Dinsmore, Coach Joe Hamm; Third Row: David Sanders, Ben Sosa, Sam Buck, Cody Nelson, Scott Appleman.

(From Left ) Coach Steve Schneider, Jackson Person, Kyle Schneider, Jeremy Rall, Joshua McCormick, Derek Umstead, Patrick Cassidy Jr., Garrett Shnyder, Cameron Kriner, Travis Singer, Ryan Hostrander, Tyler Albert, Nate Osokow, Derek Russell, Jake Levering, Head Coach Pat Cassidy Sr., and Drae Lewis.

(From left) Front Row: Mike Signor, Alec Rothrock, Frank Dyer, Matt Shea, Quenten Persun, Phillip Krizan; Back Row: Coach Tom Kuntz, Derek Evans, Andrew Null, Ryan Reid, Daniel Yoder, Quinton Kuntz, Coach Wes Persun and Manager Tom Ott.

(From left) Ront Row: Rantz Mahaffey, Ethan Showers, Brian Stopper, Levi Oden, Nick Keener, Jared Mertes; Back Row: Coach David Cipriani, Justin Cozza, Gabe Noyalis, Kurt Wertz, Steve Stopper, Coach Jeremy Eck and Coach David Howe.