The youngest Powell Pioneers gained invaluable experience throughout much of their first season with the program, as the Pioneer ‘C’ team finished with a winning record at 21-20.

Powell started April 1-1 with a split against the Upper Deck Expos, before a busy May saw the Pioneers going 6-8.

Powell followed that with a strong June going 9-7 before ending the year with a 5-4 record in July including taking 3-4 against Lovell and Cody before falling at a Gillette ‘C’ tournament to end the year.

“I think with them, it’s their first year in legion. It’s such a big transition from the game that they’ve been playing before. I mean in Little League guys aren’t leading off from bases, so that adds a whole ‘nother dynamic to the game,” manager Tyler England said. “We definitely had our hiccups and our stumbles, but I think they always learned from it and they just kept moving forward. That was a whole lot of fun for me as a coach, even when things were going bad, the arrow was always pointed in the right direction. I knew the kids were always getting better, which for me was always the most important thing.”

The Pioneers had 13 athletes who played in at least half of the games, and seven who played over 30 games.

The best batting average at the plate came from August Teten, who held a .435 average, recording 40 hits and 23 RBIs.

Karzten Carter recorded the most hits for the Pioneers with 44, while Chuck Arzaga had the most RBIs with 35.

“Our approaches definitely could have been better. I will say they took tough at-bats all the time,” England said. “They didn’t ever give up whatever the count was or what sort of situation they would find themselves in. This is probably me being a stickler or picky coach, but we talked at the beginning and even the end of the year — I was still harping on the kids that you have to make sure you’re doing your homework before it’s your turn to hit. If you’re not spending time while your teammates are hitting, trying to kind of get your body on time with the pitcher, but when you step into the box it’s almost too late … I think that mental maturity of not taking any pitches off, even when you’re not the guy hitting. There’s always something to learn.” 

Arzaga had the most innings on the mound for the Pioneers with 55-1/3 innings pitched, going 4-4 while the whole team had 10 pitchers record double digit innings this season.

Arzaga added 61 strikeouts to lead the team, while Ryder Stewart had the best ERA on the team with a 4.714.

Pitching was a key focus  this season, as England said the Pioneers focused on the importance of finding the strike zone and not worrying about the power or movement of the pitch early on.

“I think something that we would have liked to have been better at is just the ability to throw more strikes,” England said. “I told all the players at the beginning of the season I was like ‘guys, we don’t need anybody that can throw 75 on our fastball or has a curveball that breaks a foot-and-a-half.’ We just need guys that can throw strikes. If we can throw a strike on the inside half of the plate and the outside half of the plate when we want to, that’s going to make it really tough for hitters to be on time with us … But I’d say that is definitely something that we worked on that we would have liked to have been better at.”

The younger Pioneers were not able to attend the state ‘C’ tournament in Evanston as they decided instead to attend the ‘B’ tournament.

Along with the Pioneers finishing the season with a 21-20 record, a number of the players from this year’s team will be eligible to return to the ‘C’ team next year.

Some will continue with the ‘B’ team despite both teams having a similar roster this year due to the amount of players required to play ‘A’ for the Pioneers.

England said he is hopeful for the future of this group, and expects them to hit the ground running next year.

“They’ve got a ton of potential. They could be super tough, they showed me a lot by their continued effort and desire to keep on learning and keep on improving,” England said. “If they can just keep that, the sky’s the limit. I told them I’m still learning stuff about baseball all the time. I told them the first day of practice, if this is the best we’re ever going to be at baseball that would be the saddest possible thing that could happen. Like, I don’t care if we lose or win. I love winning, but I don’t care if we lose as long as we’re moving in the right direction. Every day, if we’re just stacking one more brick we’re moving in the right direction. If we do that, we’re going to be happy with what our outlook is at the end of the year.”