Last November, Howard Township Baseball and Brandywine Cal Ripken learned that they would be hosting the 2016 state championship tournaments for ages 8 to 12.

Since then, dozens of volunteers and league officials have been preparing for that day.

Well, that day is here and the state tournament began at Firemen’s Park and Pepper Martin Park at noon.

There are 20 teams that will be participating in the tournament including Macomb, Alpena, Brandywine and Howard Township.

The tournaments are scheduled to wrap up Sunday afternoon with games at both parks.

“It will be exciting,” Howard Township President Jason Asmus said. “We haven’t done this in about four years. It will be exciting for the new kids to be able to take part in this.”

Asmus said that a meeting between the leagues that are participating in the tournament decided on the site for the 2016 season.

“We talked about it amongst the league and since we hadn’t hosted it in a while, it was decided to bring it back to this side of the state,” Asmus said. “The wanted to spread the wealth a bit.”

Since November there has been plenty to do in preparation, including field maintenance, getting rosters from each team, having uniforms for the local all-star teams to wear, finding accommodations for visiting teams and making sure the concession stands are well stocked.

“I would say there are about 50 volunteers total between us and Brandywine,” Asmus said.

During this weekend those volunteers will be busy preparing the fields for each game, working the concession stands and handling the award ceremonies on Sunday, just to name a few.

Asmus is excited to be able to showcase the two local Cal Ripken Baseball leagues to other communities.

“People are traveling from quite a distance to some of the best ballparks in southwest Michigan,” he said.

Admission is free. Commemorative t-shirts will also be on sale during the tournament.

A complete listing of the schedule is available online at www.leaderpub.com.