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Cubs look for growth

ESCANABA — The Escanaba Legion baseball team is looking forward to improving on its previous seasons this year. Manager Jon Bintner is looking forward to developing his team.

“We’ve had a couple rough years,” he said. “I think we’ve had three or four wins in previous seasons. It’s been a little rough, but we do have tough competition that we play. I think we can be one of the top three teams in the U.P., win a couple games in our zone and end up in Gladwin for the state tournament.”

One of the problems, Bitner notes, is the reduced player pool.

“We’ve had some droughts for getting people to come out for the team,” he said. “I don’t know what the reasoning behind it is. (Kids) get burnt out from (high school baseball). You practice and play for a couple months and then go through districts, and when it comes to summer baseball they want to just have fun or start working. Most of the high school team doesn’t come out for Legion anymore.”

Before the Cubs’ season began, one of the most important moves was finding enough players to fill the roster.

“I brought a couple guys from Manistique this year,” Bitner said. “They’re going to transfer, and they’ve just got to get some waivers signed. Slowly but surely, with their help, we’re trying to get our numbers up so we have full rosters.”

The Cubs will also face some of their stiffest competition early in the season, with Negaunee being their first game of the season and playing Midland in an upcoming tournament.

“Negaunee had a good high school season this year, and then we’ve got Midland in the Gregg Johnson tournament over the weekend,” Bintner said. “They’re usually in the Legion World Series. So, we’re starting off against a couple good teams right away, and our tournaments are usually pretty solid.”

Bitner believes the Cubs’ chances will be decided on the mound.

“(This year) will really depend on our pitching,” he said. “Johnny Schlenvogt will probably be our pitcher. He took last summer off to go to Northwoods to be a basketball manager, so we’re getting him back. I want to say he was number one in (Escanaba) when he was there. So, getting him to be able to pitch every couple games for us will be great.

“Guys like Riley Lamb are going to hold lots of meaning for us. I know he didn’t have the opportunities he wanted to in the season, and we’ll be relying on him as one of our better pitchers. Jake Anderson and Jake LaFave will also be some of the team leaders. They’ll be a solid anchor at the plate.”

Noah Lancour rounds out the team leaders for the Cubs.

“Noah Lancour will be joining us. He logged quite a few innings this season and did a lot for the high school team this year. He’ll be one of our top hitters and pitch for us quite a bit too.”

As always, the fundamentals are where the Cubs will focus.

“Pitching and defense are key,” Bintner said. “A lot of the guys who are going to get to play haven’t had many opportunities at some positions, and so you put them out there and try to have some fun and be competitive. I always try to look at it positively, and we should be able to compete with most of the teams from around here. We hope to be able to pull out a couple wins.

“We’re just in the process of trying to make our program great like it used to be. I know in the early 2000’s we were going to the state tournament on a pretty good steady basis. It’s a lot different than it was. It’d be nice to get back to the state tournament.”

The Cubs travel to Negaunee today for their season opener at 6:30.

The schedule:

June 19 — at Negaunee

June 20-23 — Gregg Johnson/Al Erickson home tournament

June 25 — at Menominee

June 26 — at Marinette

June 27 — Bark River

June 28-30 — at Marinette tournament

July 3 — at Gladstone

July 5 — at Bark River

July 10 — Negaunee

July 11 — Gladstone

July 12 — at Bark River

July 15 — at Menominee

July 16 — Menominee

July 18-21 — Legion Zones home tournament

July 25-28 — State tournament at Gladwin

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