×

Post 159 to play as St. Clairsville Patriots

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — It’s not quite the way Mike Muklewicz envisioned the summer of 2020. The Bridgeport High and Bethany College alum is entering his fifth season as manager of the St. Clairsville Post 159 baseball team, and his eighth overall.

However, due to the global COVID-19 pandemic and the surrounding unknown circumstances, the National American Legion canceled the 2020 season a few months ago. It also dropped the insurance coverage of each affiliation, thus forcing them to play as ‘independent’ teams if they chose to do so.

“St. Clairsville Post 159 baseball will operate as the St. Clairsville Patriots in 2020. We tried to stay close to our roots being as the program originally represented our great veterans,” Muklewicz said. “So keeping with that theme we decided on the Patriots.

“It was obviously an odd spring leading up to this season but I told the kids when the National American Legion Headquarters shut us down that we were looking into other options,” he added. “Our main thing was not letting these young guys have a whole year going to waste. It would have been very easy pull the plug, and at times it almost seemed like the right answer when your schedule is falling apart and you don’t even know whether you are going to be able to physically walk on your field without breaking some sort of rule or guidance.

“We had a lot of conversations with (Wheeling manager) Jon-Michael Brunner and Anthony Pierro (Jefferson County) and we all decided we had to give this thing a shot so here we are.”

He said getting a schedule finalized was difficult because you didn’t know who was going to have a team and who wasn’t.

“Once the June part of the schedule fell apart, we decided to load up July and go. We have 25-28 potential games in a 34-day stretch and it’s going to be a grind but these guys will be ready to go,” he stressed.

The preseason workouts have been drastically different.

“Usually coming out of (the) high school (season) we,as coaches, just have to fine-tune some things and put in a system,” he acknowledged. “We started pretty slow and these last two weeks are going to be all about simulation. We need these guys comfortable in the box and on the mound come opening day.”

St. Clairsville will once again play its home games at the spacious Memorial Park diamond. The home-opener is set for 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 30 against the Wheeling Stogies.”

As far as the group of kids, Muklewicz is very pleased with the core that returns and the additions.

“Two of our leaders will be coming back from their freshman years at college. Jakob Jarvis (St. Clairsville/Marietta) has been an excellent defensive asset for three years now and Drake Dobson (Martins Ferry/West Liberty) is our guy in the rotation. I love to see the progression from the first time I saw both of them until now,” he noted.

Other returners include Tyler Tonkovich (St. Clairsville), Jacob Probst (Martins Ferry/Rio Grande), Cole Porter (Bellaire/Cal, Pa.) and Will Balgo (St. Clairsville).

“These guys know what we are about, what we expect of them and the system. So at this point, I feel confident in the infield,” Muklewicz added.

“The outfield is going to be a wide-open race with no returners, but with a unusually smaller roster compared to years past, everyone is going to bounce around,” he continued. “That’s the beauty of it all with the roster we aim to have. We can ask any guy to do anything on any given day and they can at a high level. Plus, many of them pitch.”

The roster is completed with Colby Shriver, Mason Goddard and Collin Snedeker (Martins Ferry); Drew Sefsick (St. Clairsville); and Dakota Hess (Union Local).

The Patriots will play in the Don Coss Tournament in Cambridge on July 2-5 with games against Parkersburg, Cambridge, Marietta and Findlay. They will also compete in a round-robin event at Indian Creek Middle School in Mingo on July 11-12 along with Jefferson County, Barnesville, Cambridge and Parkersburg. Also on the schedule are contests with John Marshall and the Tri-State Blue Dons out of Weirton.

All home games start at 6 p.m.

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *

COMMENTS

[vivafbcomment]

Starting at $4.73/week.

Subscribe Today