When so much of the youth baseball’s attention is focused on expensive travel ball teams, private lessons and attraction-filled tournaments all over the country, a good old fashioned Babe Ruth team is doing pretty well for itself.

The Ripon Senior Babe Ruth is comprised of players ages 16-18 from all over the Manteca area and have players from several of the area high schools, such as Sierra, East Union, Lathrop, Weston Ranch, Manteca and both Ripon and Ripon Christian.

When the opportunity arose for local players to get at-bats, take advantage of a relatively low-maintenance schedule and reap the benefits of playing under the lights in night games as far south as Modesto and far north as Lodi, players eventually would have to be turned away.

“We’re pretty full right now,” Ripon coach Greg Leland said during a split-squad game played at Sierra High. “We started off thinking we were just going to have one team, but we kept getting so many kids signing up we had to start thinking. Next thing you know, we’ve got 18 to 19 kids and you’re trying to figure out how you’re going to get them enough playing time.

“Finally, we got up to 26 and split it into two teams.”

The team played its second split squad game of the season Tuesday at Sierra. The Ripon White Sox beat the Red Sox, 10-3. Cory Van Warmerdam went 3 for 4 with a double and a triple for the winning club. Makana Ward drove in two runs and Alex Garlets plated two as both went 2 for 4. Winning pitcher Nick Van Warmerdam threw three scoreless innings in relief.

The makeup of the split squads vary, with players who have minimal varsity baseball experience to players who have collegiate baseball aspirations. All-league players from both the Valley Oak League and Southern League make up some of the squads’ more competitive balance, such as Weston Ranch standout Tyler Scharnow, East Union’s Zac Carrillo as well as Ripon Christian graduate and former all-Southern League player Elijah English.

“It’s really great to have this many players out here,” said coach Chris Van Warmerdam. “Especially in this age group. It’s one of those things where, you want to make sure every kid that wants to play has that opportunity.

“We’ve got all good personalities; all good kids.”

Of the 26-man roster nearly all of the players played varsity baseball at the high school level. Both fractions of the split-squad teams put together a quality effort, playing a good brand of baseball throughout the seven inning affair.

“We’ve got 26 kids and I think every player out here played high school baseball someplace,” Leland said. “They all played, except maybe three or four of them. So we’ve got kids from Manteca, East Union, Sierra Weston Ranch, Ripon High and so we have a lot of representation of the area schools.

“I’ve gotten phone calls from five or six more kids that are asking if we still are taking players.”

The coaching staff feels the league could expand to possibly six teams if they open registration again next season.