Wooster Youth Baseball wraps up successful 2025 season

Wooster Youth Baseball recently completed its 2025 season, and League President Larry Poulson said he’s thrilled with the positive responses the board has received from players, coaches and parents alike.

The organization had approximately 260 players, ranging from T-ball to 12U. There were two gold and two silver teams in 12U, three teams in 10U, two in 9U, nine in 8U, and six T-ball squads.

From age 9 and older, the teams competed in the Wayne County League. The WYB Board was determined not to lose older players to travel teams, and it was mission accomplished, Poulson said.

“We’ve kept almost all of the kids there, where we lost them in the past,” Poulson said. “We have a little bit of something for everybody. If you’re one of the most talented kids in the program or a kid who’s never played before, there’s probably a team and a fit for you. We saw so many kids leave in past years.”

After joining the Wayne County League, top players and their parents have opted to stay with WYB during the week and only travel for weekend tournaments, Poulson said. In the past they left WYB to also play in weekday travel league games.

“We want to keep every single Wooster kid that wants to play baseball in our rec league, and then they can play tournaments for other teams on the weekend if they want to,” Poulson said. “That’s a main reason why we’ve made all these changes, to keep everybody in.”

WYB also now has all of its teams wearing some version of the Wooster Generals’ Blue and Gold colors, getting away from the traditional sponsors’ colors that had been used for many years. The sponsors’ names still appeared on jerseys, but the entire WYB has a Wooster “community” feel.

“We all play under Wooster now, and all of our sponsors were very sweet about it and supportive,” Poulson said.

As the Wayne County League postseason rolled on, Wooster’s talent shone through.

“There were 21 county teams in 10U, and we had three of the four in the Final Four,” Poulson said. “That’s pretty unreal. Our two 12U gold teams and two 9U teams were in the Final Four. We didn’t win any, unfortunately, but a 12U gold, 10U and 9U team got seconds.”

Poulson said teams were divided as evenly as possible in all age groups.

“If you see other county schools, you’ll see a community with a 10-2 team, 7-5 and 0-12 in the same division,” Poulson said. “Our board decided we aren’t going to stack one team like some others do. What good does it do if a team doesn’t win any games, just to help another have a better shot at first?

“We made them all as even as possible. Every one of our teams won at least one tournament game. I think the overall record was something like 85-35, which I’m really proud of. We’re playing really good baseball among all divisions. The coaches were great. They really developed these kids.”

Along with Poulson, other WYB board officers are Jay Mihoci (vice president), Jen Eichel (treasurer), Erika Mihoci (player agent), Landre McCloud (secretary) and many other committed board members.

After the Wayne County League tourney wrapped up, Wooster put together tournament teams (previously called All-Star teams), and those teams were successful as well, Poulson said.

The revamped Wooster Youth Baseball League also has recently renovated fields, more parking spaces, a new concession stand and more, Poulson said.

“We’re somewhat limited with space, but we’ve done the best we can to maximize what we have,” Poulson said.