Who looks to do well from the SOUTH?

Coach you did'nt leave alot for me to cover.

Carmi will be very tough with a few guys with upper 80's fastballs(Choate-SIU & Dennis) who can pitch. They have a catcher with a cannon(Kittinger) who has signed juco. They lost in the super last year to Nashville who has Lucas O'Rear and Dillon York coming back. They are always tough. West Frankfort has as deep a staff as there is in the south with Matt Weeks(Missouri St.), Seth Shelton and Keith Jones. How they hit will determine how far they go. Eldorado has Daniel Etienne(SIU) and Jimmy Suits who is an 07 who could be the breakout guy in the south this spring. He is a long lefty with mid 80's heat and some good os stuff. In AA Marion is down this year after losing almost all of their pitching. Watch out for Centralia as Kottemeyer has done a heck of a job building that program up. I'll post more later when I have a few more minutes. Also coachb you have a pm.

Waterloo Bulldogs--

Coach, thanks for the mention; I'll try filling in a little bit of detail.

-Gregson already mentioned is looking to probably be lead-off once again playing shortstop. I haven't seen him do anything yet because I've been too busy catching our millions of pitchers.

-Weise too already mentioned. I don't know if Coach will move him to 3 or 4 spot, but I could definitely see him staying in the 2 slot. Great defensive catcher; decent arm; and a load of power at the plate. Great leader on the field as well. He's an 18 year old in a 60 year old man's body, but on gameday he'll play his heart out and produce something.

I don't know what the rest of the lineup looks like at this point.

Pitching staff-
- Mike Augustine threw fairly well last year. Don't know stats, but he got some stuff done on the mound. Little set back last week after having a minor operation on his throwing wrist (a cist or something) so he's out for another week or so.
- Dylan McNew seems to be feeling pretty good this year. He's coming off shoulder surgery last spring, but he's bringing some gas. He's throwing a slider instead of a curve ball this year, and that thing has some nice movement to it. One of these days, I may catch up with it.
-Brandon Koenstign, a sophomore, will be back on the mound this year for the Bulldogs. Not real big, and he won't overpower you, but he's going to get things done. I believe he came up with 4 or 5 wins last year at varsity as a freshman. He, too, had a little set back a few weeks ago hyperextending his throwing elbow I believe in a varsity basketball game. They were afraid it might have messed up the screws from previous surgeries. He has thrown since and seems to be back on track.
- Dallas Beard is a lefty. Senior this year Dallas is a competitor. I wouldn't consider him the greatest pitcher, but he'll fight and get some stuff done.
- Steven Lee, another senior, is throwing fairly well so far this year. His biggest problem is that he's a little bit of a headcase, but I think Weise will be able to control him on the mound.

There are several more juniors and seniors out this year who can throw a little bit. We've got one kid who hasn't played high school ball until this year who has some pop on his fastball. If he can throw strikes, he'll be successful because his release is different and I think batters could have a hard time picking it up.

I don't think we have a stud pitcher here this year and nobody who is overpowering like Matt Scott last year, but we have several that can do a little bit.

I don't know how great of hitters we'll have this year overall, but I'd watch out because I think if we get the hitting technique, you'll see some fly. I would look for Weise to bust out even more than last year. We have several football players on the team, and there is some pure strength in there. I think our speed will be decent enough that you'll have to look out for just about anything. CoachB knows how Coach Vogel plays the game and we're looking to improve on that even more.

Last thing- We have a strong coaching staff this year and I think the game on the field will show that. We've got Coach Vogel who has been here 15 years almost who played D1 himself at Northern Iowa. We've got Coach Fulte volunteering this year working with the catchers quite a bit. He and Coach Vogel are on the same page because a lot of what Coach Vogel does came from Coach Fulte. We have Coach Smith as the pitching coach. I believe he played a little college ball somewhere, but not positive. Our JV coach, Coach Wahlig, played college ball as well as a little bit in the minors. He knows a terrific amount of baseball and loves to work on it. I think we have a strong coaching staff freshmen thru varsity, paid and volunteer.

Watch out for the Bulldogs!

free scouting report!

Hope you kept a few secrets up your sleeve for those close games Bulldog! Good luck this season.

Forgot about DuQuoin. They have Bryant George who signed with SIU who can run it up to 92 and Tyler Bullock a catcher who has signed with Austin Peay. Tyler who has some of the best pure power in the state already had 25 or so career HR's. He can also run it up into the upper 80's on the mound. Pinckneyville will also be very solid with most of their team back especially pitching. RHP Lyle Winter has been getting some d1 interest here lately. Carlyle also has a good team. Catcher Kory Peppenhorst signed on at EIU and they have the Isaak cousins who both hit over .450 last year.

Wow! Thanks for the book reports on this topic.

Always thought south was everything in a 618 area code CoachB. That would actually leave Illinois with a central (217), though this might confuse the northerners even more.

Anywhere outside the Chicago area is "Downstate"

Bradley-Bourbonnais returns almost everyone, probably deserve to be mentioned.

How was Bradley last year? Bradley is on our schedule this year; we play them on a Saturday
(Varsity/JV) game. We played them a couple of Summers ago at their place and they had a great field. I'm looking forward to playing them this year.

Coach B25: I sent you a return e-mail last week sometime. I don't know if it ever got to you though. Looking forward on seeing you down at the Lincoln Tournament.

quote:

Originally posted by rczar11:
How was Bradley last year? Bradley is on our schedule this year; we play them on a Saturday
(Varsity/JV) game. We played them a couple of Summers ago at their place and they had a great field. I'm looking forward to playing them this year.

Coach B25: I sent you a return e-mail last week sometime. I don't know if it ever got to you though. Looking forward on seeing you down at the Lincoln Tournament.

Coach, I didn't get it. We've had some troubles lately. They are doing so much construction around here that the power is going off all of the time. It seems to really mess up our computers. A lot of stuff sent to me is getting caught in a Barracuda Firewall. I think I read your name in there. The Lincoln Tournament is always a lot of fun. That is consistently one of the highlights of our year. It seems like you're loaded again this year. I think a lot of the teams there are top notch and so that's why we want to play there. Good Luck this year!

quote:

Originally posted by rczar11:
How was Bradley last year? Bradley is on our schedule this year; we play them on a Saturday
(Varsity/JV) game. We played them a couple of Summers ago at their place and they had a great field. I'm looking forward to playing them this year.

Coach B25: I sent you a return e-mail last week sometime. I don't know if it ever got to you though. Looking forward on seeing you down at the Lincoln Tournament.

Bradley Bourbonnais has a new coach in Kevin Arthur...He will do a decent job with his personnel but might be a little lacking in the pitching dept. for the new league.....Hopefully they do well, he's a former player of mine ....

Bradley-Bourbannais was pretty darn good last year. Lost the sectional championship to Normal West. If they have most everyone coming back as Coach Buttermaker says, they should be tough.

Thanks for the insight. Hopefully we can stay close enough and pull one out late in the game.
Moving in a different direction, has anybody played in the Champions tournaments in Louisville during the Summer months? I'm looking into going down there from June 20-25 this year. Don't want to waste my time though if it's not worth it.