The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

PRESCOTT - Waits­burg Prescott coach Dustin Snedigar sails into his fourth season at the helm of the Tiger baseball program with plentiful pitching but little varsity experience on his 2013 roster. Lost from last season's state quarterfinal team are pitcher and short­stop Zach Bartlow, and the entire outfield of Justin Zuger, Chris Manzano, Da­vid Herzog, and sub Eric Rosenfeld.

Returning, however, are senior starters from last year, Dalton Estes at shortstop and pitching, Tucker Alle­man at catcher, and Riley Stevens at third base. Sne­digar estimates that about six to seven students from Jubilee, eight to 10 from Prescott, and another eight to 10 from Waitsburg have turned out or will turn out.

"Numbers-wise we are exactly where we were a year ago," said Snedigar. "But we're young. We have four seniors-not all with varsity experience. After that it's a lot of sophomores and a couple of juniors."

Snedigar expects to field a full junior varsity squad with its own 10-game schedule in addition to his varsity team's 20-game schedule. Assisting Snedigar are coaches Jake Vibbert from Jubilee, who has experience as a college baseball player and sum­mer league coach, and Chris Behler, new this year from Dayton. Behler, previously coached at Camas High School and also played col­lege ball.

Of the returning play­ers, the most experienced is Dalton Estes-a four year starter for WP.

"He has started since he was a freshman and he probably has close to 180 at-bats at the varsity level," said Snedigar. "He's played shortstop, outfield, and he's pitched. And he'll probably be one of our main guys on the mound this year. He and Tucker Alleman are really like extra coaches out there for me."

Speaking of Alleman, Snedigar singled out his returning catcher for his great improvement from his sophomore to his junior sea­son- especially his defense.

"Last year Tucker be­came our full time catcher and had an outstanding year behind the plate," Snedigar said. "He needs to get his bat going a little bit, and he'll be the first to tell you that. But as far as being a catcher, he caught every game. And that's a big step when you consider how hard it is to work all those doublehead­ers. "

Snedigar expects big things as well from third baseman Stevens. Stevens, a transfer in district last year from Dayton can expect to play third, but also fill holes in the wide open outfield as well.

The fourth senior on the varsity roster is Jubilee's Roy Ebong-a standout re­ceiver in football who decid­ed to come out for baseball this year instead of track.

"He hasn't played since Little League, so he's play­ing catch-up," Snedigar said. It is unclear who will take the shortstop position when Estes is on the mound. Sec­ond base, however, lacks the same uncertainty. Waitsburg junior Kyle Dozier returns to his starting position at the two-bag.

First base appears to be a competition between two tall players-6-foot 3-inch Zoren McKenzie and 6-foot 2-inch Chance Leroue.

"They are both big guys who can cover first base real well," according to Snedi­gar. "Zoren's from Jubilee and has got a lot of baseball experience. Chance played played sparingly on varsity last year as a freshman. Ju­nior Nick Pearson, who had some varsity experience last year, could also see time at first."

Starting outfield positions are wide open this year and could be filled by any of a number of players including Michael Grant from Waits­burg and Ebong and Nate Allen from Jubilee.

The pitching rotation could be interesting for the Tigers as they are waist deep in arms. Snedigar sees Estes and Leroue as his likely starting tandem for double- headers but notes that sopho­more Talen Larsen, Devin Acevedo, McKenzie, and Allen can all pitch as well.

Larsen intrigues Snedigar as a change of pace reliever to the power pitching of Ler­oue and Estes.

"Talen throws strikes," said Snedigar. "We can throw hard and then go slow if we wanted to. Talen's worth going through the line-up at least once."

When not pitching, Lars­en will back up the middle infield, and Acevedo will likely see playing time at third base.

"My biggest goal is to make the guys better defen­sively; make sure we have guys at the right spot," said Snedigar. Snedigar sees the league stacking up as it usually does, with DeSales and Asotin at the top of the list. He knows the league his Tigers play in is one of the toughest in the state, and that's the way he likes it.

"We were one hit away from the final four last year," said Snedigar. "That would have put three teams from our league in it - us, along with Asotin and DeSales. Asotin and DeSales faced each other in the state cham­pionship which DeSales won. Asotin was undefeated except for four losses-all to DeSales. "DeSales only lost twice, and we were able to sneak one from them with Zach (Bartlow) on the mound. Our league is really tough, so we have to be on the ball when we play. To have two teams like that in our league makes us better, and our kids know how hard it is to play them."

The Tigers put the spikes on for the first time at their home jamboree this Sat­urday, then travel to Pilot Rock, Ore. the following weekend for their season's first games. Friday's op­ponent at the Pilot Rock tourney is defending Oregon Class 2A champion Ken­nedy.