Hood River Valley High School baseball players Kyle Beam, Ryan Colesar and Ty Bofferding traveled to Centralia, Wash., last week to play in the elite Baseball Northwest Championships tournament. The invitation-only event is aimed at providing top young players from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming exposure to college coaches and scouts.
The three — Beam a catcher, Colesar an infielder and Bofferding a pitcher — were placed on separate teams for the five-game tournament of 14 teams and about 250 of the region’s top players.
“It’s definitely an honor to play in the tournament,” Bofferding said this week. “Players come from all over the area. To be selected you have to go to an evaluation camp to show what your skill set is. If they like what they see they’ll evaluate you and hopefully invite you to play in some of their tournaments.”
This year was Bofferding and Beam’s second time in the tournament and a first for Colesar.
“The main reason for playing in the tournament is to get exposure,” Bofferding said. “It allows college scouts and coaches to go to one place and see the best players, rather than them having to travel all over the place. It makes it easier for everyone; for players to be seen and for scouts to see more players in a more efficient way.”
For Bofferding, the tournament was part of a busy summer schedule of traveling, playing baseball and checking out colleges around the country.
“My goal is definitely to play in college, but before that I my goal is to go to the best academic school I can,” he said.
After the tournament, both Bofferding and Colesar were selected to play in an extra Academic Game, which honors the top 30 players who organizers deem the most likely to play with a top academic college program.
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