Capahas open season today in Charleston

~ Plaza Tire's roster has more questions than usual entering the 2014 season

Longtime Plaza Tire Capahas manager Jess Bolen isn't sure what to expect from his team when its season opens today.

"This year's team is going to be a mix and match type of team that, you know, with everything that happened, we really got started late," Bolen said. "I really don't know what I'm going to have to be honest with you. It's going to be young, and then we'll have some age in there, too, like Kenton Parmley and Blake Slattery's coming back that played for Southeast a couple years back."

The late start was due to a funding shortage after Plaza Tire announced it was dropping its sponsorship April 8. Eventually Plaza Tire and a group of anonymous donors saved the team's season, but not before some players found other teams to play for.

"There would have been some guys that couldn't wait around, and I don't blame them a bit," Bolen said. "They had to figure out where they were going to be playing."

The result is more young players on the roster than there might have been otherwise.

"We'll have quite a few junior college players," Bolen said. "We'll just be young, but that's not all bad either."

Those players include Jackson graduate and infielder Laban Petzoldt, Oran graduate and catcher Alex Heuring and Central graduate and infielder Ramsey Scott. All three just completed their freshman year of college. Bolen said the Capahas always have an "open" roster, meaning players likely will be added as the season progress and some could leave.

"Our ballclub probably will change as the year goes on," he said. "We'll try to strengthen it where we can."

The Capahas face the Charleston Riverdogs in a 2 p.m. doubleheader today at Hillhouse Park in Charleston, Missouri.

"What I'm going to be doing -- [assistant] Tom [Bolen] and I -- what we're going to be doing is looking at a lot of players because we have to," Bolen said. "Because a lot of these players we've got, we don't know them. We haven't seen them play that much. We just go by what we've seen out there in tryouts and stuff like that. The only way to do it is just be fair with them and stick them in the lineup and see what they do. That's kind of what we'll be doing this first weekend. We'll be seeing what we've got.

Schedule

Date Opponent Time

6-1 at Charleston (DH) 2 p.m.

6-4 at Fairview Heights 7:30 p.m.

6-6 VALMEYER 8 p.m.

6-7 VALMEYER 1 p.m.

6-9 at St. Louis Bulls 7:30 p.m.

6-13 CHARLESTON 7 p.m.

6-14 ST. LOUIS BULLS (DH) 5 p.m.

6-15 ST. LOUIS BULLS 1 p.m.

6-18 at St. Louis Spikes 7:30 p.m.

6-21 FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS (DH) 1 p.m.

6-22 SPRINGFIELD, ILL. (DH) 1 p.m.

6-25 at Charleston 7 p.m.

6-27 St. Louis Bulls 7:30 p.m.

6-28 ST. LOUIS SPIKES (DH) 1 p.m.

6-29 REUNION GAME TBD

7-4 at Valmeyer Tournament 11:30 a.m.

7-5 at Valmeyer Tournament TBD

7-6 at Valmeyer Tournament TBD

7-8 at Fairview Heights 7:30 p.m.

7-11 WATERLOO 8 p.m.

7-12 at Valmeyer (DH) 1 p.m.

7-13 at Springfield (DH) 2 p.m.

7-16 at St. Louis Spikes 7:30 p.m.

7-19 ST. LOUIS PRINTERS (DH) 1:30 p.m.

7-20 CHALRESTON (DH) 2 p.m.

7-25 at NBC Tournament TBD

Roster

No. Name Pos.

4 Kenton Parmley INF

5 Brandon Bennett C

6 Lance Young RHP

8 Blake Slattery OF

10 Logan Bartels RHP

12 Perry Middleton RHP

15 Caleb Guilliams RHP

16 Riley Calvird RHP

21 Justin Landewee RHP

23 Cody Heisserer INF/OF/P

24 Tom Bolen OF

25 Sean Bard 1B

28 Ramsey Scott INF

32 Steven Dooley RHP

33 Jesse Schott 3B

34 Laban Petzoldt INF

35 Andrew Williams RHP

37 John Troth RHP/OF

43 Drew Morecraft INF/OF

44 Alex Heuring C