Second baseman Danny Garcia of the Peninsula Oilers was named to the National Baseball Congress World Series All-American team as the tournament concluded Saturday. It is the second straight year Garcia made the team at second base.
Garcia led the Oilers with a .387 batting average this year. He also led the team in runs with 45 and home runs with five. Garcia also had 33 RBIs for the Oilers.
The Pepperdine University player was the only member of the Oilers to be selected to the All-American team. Last year, when the Oilers finished second at the NBC, pitcher Jeff Nichols and utility player Scott Candelaria joined Garcia on the team.
The Oilers, for the second straight year, were named the top offensive team of the tournament, where they finished tied for fourth after losing to the Hays (Kan.) Larks Thursday. The Oilers hit .373 to easily top all other teams in the tournament. The next closest team was seven percentage points behind the Oilers.
Garcia and Jeremy Reed tied with two others for the honor of most extra base hits at the tourney. The duo each collected six extra base hits.
The Liberal (Kan.) BeeJays went on the capture the NBC championship with a 3-1 victory over Hays Saturday. It is the fourth time Liberal has won the title, putting it ahead of, among others, the Oilers, who won in 1977, 1993 and 1994.
The final was the first intrastate championship game since 1991, when the Anchorage Glacier Pilots defeated the Oilers for the NBC title.
The tournament, commonly considered the top amateur summer baseball tourney in the country, ended up drawing 88,945 fans over 15 days in Wichita, Kan.
