Benny Westcott
Sweet Home baseball had a tough showing last season, going 5-17 overall and 3-12 in Oregon West Conference play, to finish last in the conference.
This year Head Coach John Best expects improvement.
“I don’t think we’ll finish last,” he said. “If we play to our potential, we should be right in the mix. It’s going to come down to those Philomath and Newport games to see if we have a chance at a league title or if we can get into the playoffs.”
He noted that the OWC is a really tough league and just got tougher with the addition of North Marion. Woodburn, which didn’t field a varsity baseball squad last year, has left the conference, moving up to the 5A Division, while Sisters has moved down to 3A.
Best said he would not be surprised if North Marion were this year’s top team, but he thinks Sweet Home can compete with Philomath and Newport this year. He noted that Stayton is always a challenge and Cascade beat Sweet Home in two out of three games last season.
The Huskies have big shoes to fill after the departure of stud player Russell Holly to graduation last spring. Holly was Sweet Home’s Team MVP, Pitcher of the Year, and Slugger Award winner, as well as a First Team All-League infielder and Second Team pitcher selection.
The squad also graduated Alex Kisselburgh, who was an Honorable Mention infielder, and lost Second Team outfielder Hunter Ashby, who moved out of the school district last summer.
But the Huskies still return a lot of experience with eight seniors on the varsity roster, including last year’s Gold Glove Award winner, centerfielder Dylan Luttmer, and Rookie of the Year Lewis Conn, a pitcher and catcher.
“We’re pretty experienced, so that should be helpful,” Best said.
He noted that Conn was “a big part of what some of our successes were last year.”
The coach said he expects junior first baseman and catcher Jon Holly to have a big year offensively, and that Luttmer and fellow outfield senior Jake Sieminski will have to have big years as well.
Senior shortstop Casey Valloni is offensively one of Sweet Home’s best players, Best added. “Hopefully he improves this year and has a better year.”
Every piece of the puzzle will be important on the diamond this spring, the coach said.
“Everyone’s going to have to contribute. We have 11 guys this year, so everyone’s going to get a lot of playing time and have huge roles on the team.”
So far in the still-young season, the Huskies have been practicing on the turf and working in the covered batting cage a lot due to rainy conditions.
Despite those challenges, Best said, “I’ve been really liking our intensity and focus at practice. I think they’re doing a pretty good job so far. But we’ll have to kind of see where we’re at when we play some competition.
“I think after the preseason games are over we should have a really good gauge of what we’re going to do in league.”
The Huskies’ pitchers have been working on throwing strikes and not giving up walks to improve from last year, he said.
“That was a weakness from last season. We made a few too many errors defensively, but we also gave up a lot of walks and hit by pitches.”
He noted the Huskies have some team speed this year, and has been pleased with their offensive showing.
“I’ve been really liking how we’ve been swinging the bats,” he said. “I think we have a team that could potentially put up some numbers this year, offensively. If we can hold teams down a little bit with some good defensive play, I think that will be our recipe for success.”
He thinks the team’s key pitchers will be Conn, Holly and Sieminski, but almost everyone on the team can pitch.
Rounding out the Husky roster are seniors Kaden Zajic, Trenton Smith, Daniel Goodwin, and Christian Dominy, and juniors Kelso Ellis and Kayden Gutierrez. Best is assisted in coaching by Amos Burger, Clifford Dominy, Dominic Valloni and Evan Teter.
“Always, the goal is to win league,” the coach said. “But I think our first goal is to have a really good preseason. We’ve built a schedule that’s pretty good for us, where we have some games that we probably should win, but we also play some really tough competition like we usually do.”
The Huskies host Molalla at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, March 15, and then travel to Madras for a 4 p.m. game on Friday, March 17 to start the season.
The program fields 33 players this year on three teams, including the JV and JV2 squads. The JV team, coached by Mike Carpenter with assistant Bobby Gutierrez, consists of juniors Gavin Grabeel, Mason Montigue, Bradley Marks, Case Miller, and Robbie Strome, sophomores Talen Graber, Josh Aker and Jason Funk, and freshmen Cohen Gutierrez, Lynkin Royer, Luke Rosa, Dayton Stills, and Eddie Taylor.
The JV2 team, coached by Landon Sumpter with assistant Samuel Mercado, consists of sophomores Hunter Dalley, Kenny Sanders and Beau Snyder, and freshmen Michell Stratman, Bridger Royer, Roman Shreves, Gabe Dow, Jeremiah Steagall, and Tayden Richards.