Another Championship Comes Home to El Segundo, California

There are some baseball experiences you remember for the rest of your life. For 12-year-old players across the country, Cooperstown Dreams Park is one of them.

And this week, the Beach City Prospects are bringing its championship trophy home to El Segundo.

On Monday night in Cooperstown, New York, Beach City defeated the Body Armor Titans of New York, 20–8, to win the 2026 Cooperstown Dreams Park Tournament Championship, finishing on top of a field of 104 teams from across the country.

For the players who made the trip, it was the culmination of years of baseball together. For the younger players currently wearing a Prospects jersey back home, it is also a glimpse at something they have waiting for them.

So, What Is Cooperstown?

Ask almost any 12-year-old travel baseball player about Cooperstown and chances are they know exactly what you mean.

Each summer, teams from across the country travel to Cooperstown, New York—the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame—to spend a week completely immersed in baseball. Players stay together, play teams they would likely never encounter at home, trade pins with kids from across the country and compete in a massive tournament at Cooperstown Dreams Park.

For Beach City, Cooperstown isn’t simply another tournament on the schedule.

It has become a tradition.

Our Prospects begin their journey years before they are old enough to make the trip. They start at 7 and 8 years old. They practice together, compete together, grow together and eventually, at 12U, get the opportunity to represent Beach City and El Segundo, CA on one of youth baseball’s biggest stages.

And when they get there, they know there are a lot of Beach City players who came before them.

A Decade of Remarkable Results

This year’s championship adds another chapter to a Cooperstown history we are incredibly proud of.

In the past 10 years, Beach City has reached the Cooperstown championship game three times:

2016 — Champions

2024 — Runner-Up

2026 — Champions

All three teams were coached by longtime BCBA coach and Director of Baseball Operations Ryan Lopez, who has helped guide generations of Beach City players through the program and all the way to Cooperstown.

This year was particularly special because three Beach City teams made the trip to Cooperstown together. All three competed throughout the week, and another Beach City team came within just one run of reaching the tournament’s final 16. Even out of the tournament, they stayed the entire time to root on their fellow BC Prospects, screaming at the top of their lungs from the stands.

For a local baseball academy from El Segundo to consistently compete at that level against more than 100 programs from around the country is something we don’t take for granted.

From El Segundo to Cooperstown

The trophy may say Cooperstown, but this championship was built at home.

It was built during practices at Beach City, weekends at local fields, lessons in the cages, tournaments throughout Southern California and all of the ordinary days of baseball that eventually add up to something extraordinary.

That’s also what makes this moment bigger than the 12 players on a championship roster.

Some of the younger kids running around Beach City today may not know much about Cooperstown yet.

But they will.

Our 8U, 9U, 10U and 11U Prospects are watching players who once stood exactly where they stand now. As they move through the program, Cooperstown becomes something on the horizon—a trip they get to dream about and ultimately experience with the teammates they have grown up playing beside.

And that’s one of our favorite parts of the Prospects program: there is history behind the jersey, but there is also something ahead.

Part of a Bigger Baseball Community

Beach City’s connection to El Segundo baseball extends well beyond our own teams.

Eight members of El Segundo’s 2023 Little League World Series championship team played and trained with the Beach City Prospects beginning at age eight. Over the years, BCBA has also contributed more than $500,000 to local Little League programs and charitable efforts, provided no-cost clinics for children with special needs and built an international baseball relationship with Tokyo Kitasuna Little League.

We are incredibly proud of what our players accomplish when they wear a Beach City jersey. We are equally proud when they take what they learned here and represent their Little League, their school and their community.

This week, they represented El Segundo all the way across the country.

And they’re coming home as Cooperstown champions.

For the Next Generation

To our 2026 Cooperstown players and coaches: congratulations. You earned a place in Beach City history.

To our 2016 champions, our 2024 runners-up and every Beach City player who has made the trip before them: you helped create the tradition they carried with them.

And to the little Prospects walking into Beach City this week who see that trophy and wonder what Cooperstown is:

Keep playing. Keep working. Keep growing with your teammates.

Your Cooperstown summer will be here before you know it.

2016 Champions. 2024 Finalists. 2026 Champions.

Not bad for a small baseball program from small town El Segundo.