For the area, baseball has always been a challenge for a number of reasons. From the weather to the pressure of the summer season to a lack of a strong organization from top to bottom, there have been things that made it hard for baseball to have a strong foothold in Star Valley over the past decade or two.

Rich Huntsman is part of a group that over the last year has tried to solidify a bright future for growth and he feels that is happening now that Star Valley Little League has just wrapped up play at the District Tournament in Greybull.

“It went as well as it could have hoped,” Hunstman stated. “The boys played tough and we had some older kids really step up. We’re a young team and seven or eight will come back next year so we’ll be a tough out next year. Some of our better players were 11 this year so a lot of young kids are back.  We hope to put together a good senior division team too.”

Huntsman detailed the results from this past weekend.

Our district is the west half of the state with 11 teams,” he said. “We played three games and won one and lost two but just by a total of six runs. We ended up with a bye on one day because our run differential was so low so our defense played great. Our first loss was against Green River and they best us by a couple. We beat Pinedale and then lost to Powell.

Huntsman, who is president of the league, acted as one of the coaches for the weekend along with Patrick Torres. Dan Forsythe was the team’s manager.

Over the past year he noted just how much has improved since the summer of 2024.

“The biggest thing is how much these kids improved,” he exclaimed.” Every kid got better. The fields improved and the kids played better every week. The parents had fun and it was really cool to see the spirit of baseball get going. I think people are excited about next year already.”

Signups for next year’s league are anticipated for February.

“The plan is to have this division that we had this year which his 9-12 year olds but have the 13-16 year olds as well,”  he said. “That one will be more of a travel style team. We are talking with Jackson, Bear Lake and the Bridger Valley about that. We’re hoping to take a younger team to district next year as well so we can take two.”