Ready for action
Summer has its dog days. Spring is simply dogged by the last vestiges of winter.
By the time baseball games start in earnest this week most area teams have split time practicing indoors out of the rain or snow, working to make their home field playable and getting ready for the new season.
Eventually, all the hard work pays off.
At Central Valley, coach Barry Poffenroth brought in 30 yards worth of clay to work into his infield.
“That should work in and make it very playable,” he said. “It was a little low in spots, too, so this will help level it all out.”
The playing fields at East Valley and West Valley always seem to round into shape sooner than their counterparts on the other side of town.
“We’ve been on our field pretty much from the beginning,” West Valley coach Don O’Neal said. “Except for the snow, of course.”
The Eagles, who drop from the Greater Spokane League to the Class 2A Great Northern League this season, have the added benefit of remodeled facilities.
Part of the redesigned fieldhouse area is a series of drop-down indoor batting cages that store in the rafters when not in use.
“It’s pretty slick,” athletic director Wayne McKnight said. “You push a button, they drop down and all you have to do is set up your pitching machine and you’re in business.”
Central Valley Bears
The Bears are solid defensively, but inexperienced on the mound.
Senior second baseman Ryan Simmelink, a three-year starter and an All-GSL infielder a year ago, anchors a senior infield.
Kyle Anzalone starts at first base while Zach Malone moves from third to short. Cameron Miner is the likely starter at third base and senior Kenny Adams is capable of backing up any position in the infield.
Sophomore Blake Bledsoe takes over in center field after a solid American Legion season last summer. Junior Geoff Davis will play right field and senior Trevor Nearing will start in left field and vie for a spot in the starting rotation.
Junior K.C. Mack catches a pitching staff without much GSL experience.
“I have Alex Banderas back from last year,” Poffenroth said. “After that, I have two juniors without any varsity experience: Rusty Shellhorn, a left-hander, and Trevor Shull. Those are the guys who are going to have to get it done for us.
“After that, I have seniors Trevor Nearing and Austin Giglio competing for the fourth starter spot.”
With a 20-game GSL schedule starting today, every game counts. There are no nonleague games to help pitchers build up arm strength for the season ahead, no practice games in which to look at different players. Every game counts in the standings.
That means there’s no margin for error.
“We open up against Gonzaga Prep and that’s a bit of a revenge match for us,” Poffenroth said. “They beat us in a game to get into the playoffs last year. We finished tied for sixth with them and they beat us in a playoff to get in.”
East Valley Knights
The Knights have a solid senior foundation and are looking for some young arms, said coach John Phelan.
First-team All-GSL first baseman Tanner Hamilton moves back third base, his original position. Fellow senior Caleb Alvarado, who finished second in the state in wrestling, is the full-time catcher this year. Senior Ryan Campbell takes his speed to center field and hits lead-off.
Juniors Jeff Bittner and A.J. Mills will share first base. Juniors Skyler Schiller and Trevor Slocum will start at short and second, respectively.
The question marks are on the mound.
“A.J. Mills did a real good job for us at the end of the season for us last year as a sophomore and he’s back,” Phelan said. “He’s our No. 1 starter and, after that, we’re kind of all over until we can figure out who’s going to separate themselves. Skyler Schiller is probably our No. 2. We’re going to see how guys perform here in the early part of the season and see who wants to go out and win the job.”
Phelan said he likes to have a solid group of five pitchers: three starters and at least two relievers, with some extra arms available to help out in spots.
“I’m curious to see how things shake out early,” he said. “You’re going to have to use three or four pitchers every game – you can’t have a guy throw 75 pitches his first time out and expect him to bounce right back. You don’t have the luxury of throwing three innings in a nonleague game to get ready, or having your relievers throw three innings in back-to-back nonleague games.”
While East Valley plays a full GSL schedule, they are really battling only two other teams for a postseason berth.
“We’re in an interesting position as a Class 3A team,” Phelan said. “We have to go against Mt. Spokane, which figures to be very good, and North Central, which should also be very good. We have to find a way to beat one or both of those teams so we can secure a spot.”
The playoff formula boils down to overall record – the teams with the most wins move on.
University Titans
Scott Sutherland takes over as head coach after 14 years as Don Ressa’s assistant coach. The pair essentially traded positions.
U-Hi returns just one full-time starter from a team that finished second in the GSL with a 17-6 overall record a year ago: junior shortstop Danny Jordan.
A starter in three sports, Jordan’s favorite is baseball. He’s ranked among the top prospects in the state for the Class of 2008 and is a commanding presence in the Titans’ infield.
This year Jordan also is the team’s No. 1 starting pitcher.
“Danny was our No. 4 starter last year, but he didn’t have to pitch all that much,” Sutherland said. “He didn’t throw all that much until he got into summer ball.
“This year he’s going to be our No. 1 starter and our No. 1 shortstop. That’s a difficult combination.”
Fortunately, Sutherland said, he has a very good back-up for Jordan at shortstop in sophomore Jacob Olsufka, who’s also competing for the starting job at second with junior Jacob Schnibbe.
The Titans’ No. 2 starting pitcher is one of the state’s top prospects for the Class of 2009: left-hander Billy Moon, the No. 1 pitcher from Sutherland’s Class 2A American Legion squad that qualified for the state tournament.
That one-two pitching combination should carry the Titans through the first month of the season.
“The way the schedule works out for us, we only play twice a week for the first four weeks,” Sutherland said. “We’re going to go Danny/Billy in all those games.”
Junior Travis Clark steps into the shoes left empty by the graduation of Mike Conrad, the U-Hi center fielder. Flanking Clark in the outfield will be seniors Kyle Barker and Ben Borgman.
Junior Aaron LaPlante saw plenty of action behind the plate last year, filling in for Ken VanSickle during a prolonged bout with pneumonia. This year he takes over the position.
The corner infield positions will be manned by junior Brandon Shryock (third base) and senior Chris Sothen (first base).
Austin Peasley, a 6-foot-6 sophomore, bids for a spot in the starting rotation and has been tabbed for the future by Sutherland, as has sophomore pitcher/outfielder Curt Smith, who will likely gain experience starting the occasional game for the junior varsity.
West Valley Eagles
On first look, one would think Don O’Neal would have a bare cupboard after graduating a dozen seniors off last year’s squad.
“Believe it or not, we have a pretty experienced group,” the coach said. “We have just two kids who don’t have any varsity experience. Everyone else divided time at a position or was a backup who got a chance to play.”
That from a team that was 15-6, 13-5 in the GSL, a year ago.
Junior outfielder Bryan Peterson was listed as the ninth-best prospect in the Pacific Northwest by Baseball Northwest as a sophomore and will likely be a top three pick this year.
“He’s just an animal,” O’Neal. “He took batting practice the other day and we were throwing from about 35 or 40 feet and he was scaring me, he hit the ball so hard.”
Visitors to the school take note: Peterson already has broken the windshield on a parked car outside the fence at the team’s home field – with a 400-foot shot into a steady wind.
Peterson will play right field for the Eagles, but O’Neal plans to work him in as a catcher next season – both to give his bench some added depth and to make Peterson even more attractive for baseball’s amateur draft.
Andy Vennum is the team’s No. 1 starter coming off a 4-0 record a year ago in the GSL.
A year ago the Eagles had dominant left-hander Greg Bradley as their No. 1 pitcher and the coach thinks his offense got into the habit of taking the pitcher for granted.
“If you look at his games, we always scored one or two runs for him,” he said. “The next game we’d have to score 12 or 15 runs to win. I’m hoping that will even out a little and we’ll remember to play offense every game.”
Shortstop Casey Sherrill and second baseman James Cahalan, both basketball players, turned out full-time for the first time Monday and already have boosted the practice intensity level. Sherrill was an all-GSL pick as a designated hitter last year.
Venezuelan exchange student Luis Brito will start at third base.
“He’s doing well despite a few language problems,” O’Neal said. “My Spanish is starting to come back. When I played in the (Detroit) Tigers organization, I only had two or three teammates who didn’t speak Spanish.”
Freeman Scotties
The Scotties haven’t stopped playing baseball since Chad Ripke’s first season as baseball coach ended last June.
Freeman’s freshmen and sophomores placed fifth in the state American Legion tournament last summer and the team has been using the batting cage over the winter to stay ready.
“I guess the word I want use is cautiously optimistic,” Ripke said. “We’re ahead of where we were last year.”
Freeman graduated just one senior off last year’s team and Ripke has just three seniors on this year’s roster: outfielders Josh Altmeyer and Scott Ferguson and first baseman Ryan Horlen – each an All-Northeast A League selection last year.
Altmeyer, who starts in left field, led the team in home runs a year ago and was a first-team All-NEA pick. Three-sport standout Ferguson, the center fielder, hit .370 a year ago was earned second-team All-NEA honors. Horlen, the team’s leading hitter with a .396 average, was a second-team all-NEA as a catcher last year and moves to first after a nagging knee injury.
Sophomore Jake Sullivan takes over behind the plate after handling those duties with the summer league team.
Transfer eligibility problems will determine the team’s starting rotation, but Ripke returns five pitchers with starting experience from a year ago: juniors Shamus Reilly, Pat Kestell and Abe Mega and sophomores Chris Miller and Johnny Hedges. Sophomores Beau Barnes and Cameron Moore figure to pitch in relief.