The Helper 19 U American Legion team will play their final regular season game tonight in Helper at Gardner Field at 8:00. They will take on the team from St. George. The Merchants have compiled a 13-1 record this season and look to wrap up the No.1 seed in the Legion Tournament coming up on July 23.
The Merchants have put together an impressive 12 game winning streak with the last loss coming on June 3 against Jerome at the RBI Tournament in Burley, Idaho to Jerome 8-7. They then took the top spot in the CJ Smuin Memorial tournament, where they defeated tonight ‘s opponent St. George 7-2. They have also beaten region teams from Manti, Vernal and Roosevelt.
Dakota Cisneros, coach of the Merchants joined KOAL’s Drive Time Sports and talked about his feeling as to where the team is sitting right now.
“We’re sitting right where we need to be before the state tournament, we’re feeling good about where were at, just need to make sure we stay focused and I think we’ll be in good shape.”
If they were to win this evening it would be hard to believe that they would not earn the No.1 seed in the season ending tournament. Cisneros also discussed the importance of earning the top spot.
“It’s very important, you kind of control your own destiny there, and you give yourself a couple of games there at the start to kind of make sure you’ve got everything clicking headed into the later half of the state tournament.”
Another big component of the Helper American Legion program is the 17U and 15U teams the Cisneros also works with. The two teams have had great seasons in their own right, but Cisneros talked about developing that talent to play at the high school level as well.
“Both of those teams have had good summers so far, they’re throwing a lot and doing a lot of good things. It’s been such a good thing to get that 15U team in our program early, so that they’re being coached by our high school coaches and learning things they are going to need to know for our high school season.”
The game tonight is set to begin at 8:00 p.m. at Gardner Field in Helper.
Check back with Castle Country Radio for the latest info on the Helper Merchants as soon as it becomes available.