The crown jewel event the Alpine Cowboys have chased for years is finally coming to Kokernot Field. On Sunday, July 16, representatives from all eight Pecos League Mountain Division teams will make the trek to West Texas for the league’s annual All-Star Game.

The game is scheduled for 6 p.m., with a home run derby preceding the main event. Each year the Pecos League holds two All-Star Games, one for the eight franchises in the Pacific Division, located entirely in California, and another for the eight scattered across the Southwest.

This is the first time the Pecos League will hold the Mountain Division Midsummer Classic in Alpine. However, this is not the first occurrence of a professional All-Star Game being played at Kokernot Field. The nowdefunct Continental League held its event at Kokernot in 2010, back when the team went by the ‘Big Bend Cowboys’ moniker.

The Pecos League has used a variety of host sites since its inception in 2011. The first two games were held in Alamogordo, New Mexico, at the Jim R. Griggs Sports Complex, the former home of the extinct White Sands Pupfish. The Santa Fe Fuego’s Fort Marcy Ballpark hosted from 2013-16 and again in 2021. The Garden City Wind hosted the game in Kansas in 2017 and most recently in 2022, and the Trinidad Triggers brought the game to Colorado in 2018 and 2019.

Alpine’s edition of the game will pit two former Cowboys players against each other as managers. Sean Persky, who has managed the Cowboys since 2019, will lead a squad consisting of players from the Cowboys, Wind, Tucson Saguaros and Blackwell Flycatchers. The opposing dugout will see a team helmed by Roswell Invaders player-manager Lance Myers, whose roster will include players from the Triggers, Fuego, Austin Weirdos and his fellow Invaders. Myers and Persky both started their Pecos League playing careers as Cowboys in 2017. Myers played under Persky’s leadership during Alpine’s 2019 championship season and has both played for and managed the Invaders since 2021.

The following Alpine Cowboys have been selected to Persky’s roster: pitchers Matt Hess, Connor Kelly, Bryson Spagnuolo, infielders Alex Canty, Manny Garcia, James Prockish and Josh Rego, catcher Jake Sisto and outfielder Mark Traylor.