With the end of the high school baseball season, the shift then moves to American Legion baseball season. Led by coach Dakota Cisneros, Helper will once again field three teams this year, 19U, 17U and 15U. The 19U team will start the season on June 2 on the road in Idaho with the RBI Tournament in Burley.
Last season the Helper 19U squad finished in third place in the state and look to be competing for the state championships this season and make it to the regional tournament on California. The 17U squad won the state tournament last season and with the regional being held in Alaska, the team was unable to attend. This year it will be held in Vernal and they are looking to get their this season.
Coach Cisneros talked with KOAL’s Drive Time Sports about the upcoming season and how the players have embraced the quick break and turnaround from high school to legion ball.
“I think if you look at our last two seasons of high school baseball, both incredibly successful seasons, obviously coming up short both years of what our overall goal was. This year kind of hurt a little bit, losing a couple guys there toward the end of the season that were big players for us, but I still feel like our guys fought really hard and played good baseball there at the end of the year and obviously taking third overall is a big accomplishment. Motivation definitely, I feel like heading into the summer especially getting everything started in the summer, is a question mark, but we’ve got a great group of guys, they’re excited to get some baseball started again. I think they were missing it for the week they were off, it was only a week, but we had try-outs and I could see guys were missing being out on the diamond.”
And they will get things started Thursday night in Burley, Idaho when they will face the team from Minco at 10 p.m.. Throughout the weekend they will also meet up with teams from Jerome and Thunder Ridge.
The opening home game will coincide with the CJ Smuin Memorial Tournament which will begin on Wednesday June 8 at the legion field in Helper.
You can listen to the entire interview with Helper Coach Cisneros by using the player below.
Below is the season schedule for the Helper American Legion 19U team.
|
Date |
Home |
Visitor |
Time |
|
June 2* |
Helper |
Minco |
10:00 PM |
|
June 3* |
Jerome |
Helper |
5:00 PM |
|
June 3* |
Thunder Ridge |
Helper |
7:30 PM |
|
June 4* |
TBA |
TBA |
TBA |
|
June 8** |
Helper |
Alta |
8:00 PM |
|
June 9** |
Helper |
St. George |
8:00 PM |
|
June 10** |
Helper |
Montrose |
8:00 PM |
|
June 11** |
Helper |
TBA |
TBA |
|
June 14*** |
Manti |
Helper |
4 & 6 PM |
|
June 21*** |
Helper |
Vernal |
8:00 PM |
|
June 28*** |
Helper |
Roosevelt |
6 & 8 PM |
|
July 7 *** |
Vernal |
Helper |
8:00 PM |
|
July 15*** |
Helper |
St. George |
8:00 PM |
*=RBI Tournament- Burley, Idaho
**= CJ Smuin Memorial Tournament- Helper
***= Region game
The State Tournament will be July 23-29