​Jul. 15—JAMESTOWN — After 16 years of playing slowpitch softball, Darren Perleberg needed a change.”We were all on different teams and some of us wanted to try something different,” Perleberg said. “I got with Cory Genter and I said, ‘Let’s put together a team that is competitive and doesn’t have any drama,’ because there was a little bit too much of that on some of the teams we were playing for at the time.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement”We just wanted to have a team where it was fun to show up every week, and we didn’t get our butts kicked every week,” he said. “That’s what we created, and that is what is still going. How we approach the game is really fun.”The team Perleberg and Genter created in 2013 was Esto Dingus. Esto competes on Wednesday nights at Jamestown’s Hillcrest Softball Complex during the slowpitch softball season.”Our retention with guys who still want to show up and have fun is pretty high,” Perleberg said. “From the guys we started with, we still have about 90% of the players who were on that first team.”Esto not only plays in Jamestown’s league, the team also plays in tournaments across the state and the region. The team has competed in the national tournament three times. The first year Esto competed in the national tournament, the tourney was being held in Fargo.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement”You don’t have to qualify for the national tournament, but you don’t want to just go and throw your money away,” Perleberg said. “It’s extremely expensive, and you usually have to travel a little bit. … (The first year) they needed some teams so we raised our hand and agreed to play, but that was outside our division,” Perleberg said. “It was a higher level — we didn’t get our butts kicked, but we didn’t win any games.”The next year, the tournament was played in Fargo again.”We played in our division that year,” Perleberg said. “In 2016, we played in the national tournament down in Sioux Falls (South Dakota). If you talk to our team — some of their best memories in the last 13 years was the trip down to Sioux Falls for that national tournament. We were together the whole time and the fun we had — it’s still something we talk about today.”While most of the team was involved in the trip down to Sioux Falls, there have been some lineup changes in the last 14 years.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement”If somebody does move away or we see a gap in the lineup, we’ll put our heads together and see if we can find somebody,” Perleberg said. “Sometimes we get a little bit lucky. Our current shortstop was a college baseball player, he happened to be moving back to Jamestown. Another guy’s son was in gymnastics with my daughter, and we struck up conversation, and he played high school baseball. Now he’s on our team.”There’s not a list of requirements to join Esto’s roster.”For us, it’s not all about talent,” Perleberg said. “We want to make sure they are good people. That is the No. 1 thing. It’s more about if the