Competing in wood-bat baseball leagues are all the rage for incoming and current college players to keep their games in solid shape in the offseason and prepare for a future shot at the pros.

The area's best wood-bat ball club this summer was the Michigan Rams, a team littered with talent that spawns from the Oakland County prep ranks.

Winning the Livonia 20-U league and then combining to claim their regional by outscoring their opponents by a 27-1 margin, the Rams made an appearance at Nationals last month, advancing into the third round of action before being ousted by a team from Cleveland.

The team was skippered by Rick Berryman, the head coach at Livonia Stevenson.

Local diamond cutters that sported a Rams uniform this summer were; Trent Drumheller (Stoney Creek/Oakland),  Jake Paulson (WL Central/Oakland), Cole Schaenzer (Lake Orion/Valparaiso), Zack Zott (Lake Orion/Michigan), Brandon Katta (Pontiac NDP/Spring Arbor), and Keith Paslean (Oxford/Macomb CC).

The NFWB Cobras, a club traditionally made up primarily of former Walled Lake high school standouts and skippered by Lakeland head coach Todd Miller, won the league last season and put together a deep tournament run at Nationals in 2011.