Manager Frank Bennett, right, poses with his daughter Gaby, a catcher, after the Hamilton Hurricanes 12-and-under softball team won the Babe Ruth Softball Middle Atlantic Regional title in July.

All Frank Bennett wants for Christmas is Christmas in July. That would mean the Hamilton Hurricanes 12-and-under softball team that he manages has qualified for the Babe Ruth World Series again. Bennett guided the squad from the Hamilton Girls Softball Association there this past summer after Jerry Laird did it in 2008.

A three-peat to the World Series? Well, it’s a daunting task, but one in which the Hurricanes will begin working toward after the calendar turns to 2010.

“We start our program Jan. 1,” Bennett says. “What it consists of is one day a week we go to the batting cage and we start working on hitting and breaking down the hitters and fixing the little problems that they have, and that basically goes on until the beginning of March, the middle of March. And then we get outside and we’ll start practicing two nights a week.”

The commitment is big, but well received among the players, some of whom will eventually graduate from HGSA and go on to star at Colonial Valley Conference programs, as so many players have done in the past. The weekly workouts are for any HGSA players eligible to try out for the Hurricanes. Pitching, catching and fielding instructors also visit the training center during the winter to work with players.

Five girls who played as 11s can return from this year’s Hurricanes squad which won the Middle Atlantic Regional Tournament in July at HGSA and went on to finish fourth at the Babe Ruth World Series, hosted in Wilson County, N.C.: Gaby Bennett, Frank’s daughter, who plays catcher; Kristin Hallam, a pitcher/shortstop; Mary Kate Madonia, a center fielder; Karen Prihoda, a pitcher/catcher/shortstop; and Stephanie White, a third baseman/pitcher. Joe Ferlisi and Steve Madonia are the assistant coaches and Tim Brugnoli is the scorekeeper.

To underscore the Hurricanes’ commitment to softball, their team will sponsor a one-day indoor tournament for the second straight year in March at the Robbinsville Fieldhouse indoor sports facility. They will play tournaments roughly every other weekend from April to June before the district, state and regional events precede the Babe Ruth World Series.

“It’s going to be hard to get back to that level. We’ll be lucky if we get through states next year,” said Bennett, who coached his oldest daughter, Shannon, to the PONY World Series in 1997 – also a fourth-place finish for the Hurricanes.

“We’ll still play 10, 11 tournament this coming year all over the state and all over the Middle (Atlantic) states. We’ll play in Pennsy, Delaware, might even go to New York depending on what tournaments are out there. I’ll sit down the first week or two in January and we’ll plan out the season.”

Follow Craig Haley's Mercer County sports columns on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CraigHaley.