Alpine Middle School students AJ Llanez and Alec Ramos traveled to the U.S. Specialty Sports Association baseball World Series in Dallas last week with their team, the West Texas Flying Squirrels.

The team is based out of Crane and McCamey, and also consists of players from Ozona, Fort Stockton, Denver City, and Midland. The team was coached by Tyler Esparza from McCamey.

Since February Llanez and Ramos have traveled on weekends for their practices and tournaments to get a chance to play in the World Series for travel baseball. Teams securing a USSSA World Series berth had to play in the state championship tournament in their home state to validate their berth. The Flying Squirrels won the West Texas State Championship in Midland on June 13.

The USSSA World Series took place on July 6-11 in Richardson for the 13AA Division. The Flying Squirrels competed in skills competition Tuesday morning, winning the fastest time for around the horn, and were the runners up for base running competition. They competed in pool play and bracket play, with an overall record of 6-3.

The Flying Squirrels took third place out of 22 teams in their 13AA Division, beating out teams from East Texas and Oklahoma.