The Kearney Little League post-season team comes up short in the semi-final game at the Midwest Region Tournament in Whitestown, Indiana after a 3-1 loss to South Dakota (Sioux Falls LL, Sioux Falls, SD). Kearney suffered a 13-5 defeat from Wisconsin (Whitefish Bay LL, Whitefish Bay, WI) in the first round of the bracket. They then played the role of “eliminators” their next three games by defeating Minnesota (Centennial Lakes LL, Circle Pines, MN) 10-5, Missouri (Webb City LL, Webb City, MO) 13-3, and Iowa (North Scott LL, Eldridge, IA) 5-0 while blazing their way through the elimination bracket leaving only Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota (Fargo LL, Fargo, ND) in the hunt for the championship. South Dakota then beat North Dakota 6-0 and advanced to the 78th Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. South Dakota finished in fourth place of the United States bracket of the Little League World Series with a record of (2-2).
Nebraska posted an impressive team batting average of .322 (38 for 118) which was tops for the eight states. The closest to the kids from Kearney was North Dakota with a .274 batting average. Offensive leaders for Kearney Little League were Maddox Rethorst who went 7 for 12 (.583) with 5 RBI. Braylon Janssen was 7 for 13 (.538) with 2 doubles, 1 triple and 6 runs scored. Wesley Davis was 4 for 8 (.500) with 2 RBI. Grady Thome was 6 for 12 (.500) with 1 double, 2 triples, 8 RBI and 6 runs scored. Triple Rodriguez was 3 for 7 (.429), slugged 2 home runs, 4 RBI, and scored 6 runs.
Leading the way on the mound for the Kearney pitching staff was Jack Binderup who collected 2 wins over 5.0 innings with 2 strikeouts. Thome logged 8.2 innings of work while striking out 5 and getting a win and Kyler Kretz fanned 3 batters over 1.2 innings pitched.
Rounding out the team roster are Brennan O’Connor, Jack Damratowski, Parker Radke, Parker Smith and Silas Holl. The team was led by manager Austin Persinger who was a player on the 2008 state championship team. The assistant coaches were Joe Radke, Joe Rodriguez and practice coach Dillon Whitcomb.
Kearney was chartered with Little League in 1952 and will be celebrating it's 75th season in 2026. Since the turn of the century in 2000, Kearney Little League has won 14 state championships, been Midwest Region runner-up twice and the Midwest Region champions and Little League World Series participant one time. The Midwest and Great Lakes Region tournaments are both hosted at the Central Region Headquarters of Little League Baseball as part of the Little League World Series International Tournament which is the largest elimination tournament in the world. All tournament games could be watched on the ESPN networks.
