Wayne County Legion baseball squad qualifies for state
The 2024 Wayne County American Legion baseball team consists of bat boy Ben Still, front left, Owen Hoffman, Owen Walter, Tristan Franks; back row, manager Gil Stauffer, head coach Mike Still, Will Carmichael, Austin Peterson, Ashton Still, Logan Wyatt, Jacob Ward, David McIe, Gavin Casdorph, Garrett Schmidt, assistant coach Brett Ward, Austin Peterson, assistant coach Mark Schmidt, Shane Coblentz and WC Legion member Bernie Harter.
The number of American Legion baseball teams in Ohio and nationwide continues to shrink, with seemingly countless new travel baseball options for high school players each year.
However, the Wayne County American Legion Post 68 team founded in the mid-1990s by the late Mike Vasas is going as strong as ever.
The WC Legion team won its regional tournament by topping Columbus Post 171 by scores of 16-10 on July 18 and 13-3 on July 19. The locals qualified for the Ohio American Legion state tournament, which will consist of six teams and will be held at Beavers Field in Lancaster July 26-29.
“This is the most talented group of boys I've ever had the pleasure to coach,” said second-year WC Legion head coach Mike Still, whose team is made up of 19U players from Dalton, Hillsdale, Northwestern, Norwayne, Triway, Waynedale and Wooster. “They stay lighthearted in the dugout. They have fun and joke around with each other and the other team, but they lift each other up when they need to.
“They have a great chemistry, where they can cover the good and the bad with each other.”
The WC Legion team also plays under the name Wooster Fireballers and has a 12-9-1 overall record. Also coaching are Fireballers founder and head coach Brett Ward and Mark Schmidt, with Vietnam veteran Gil Stauffer helping as team manager.
In the American Legion regional, WC Legion was dropped into the consolation bracket in the double-elimination tournament after Columbus Post 171 rallied for a 13-12 win.
The locals won the regional the hard way, rallying to beat Utica 9-2 and then take two straight from Columbus.
“We kind of got the short end of the stick (going into the loser’s bracket),” Still said, “but Utica came to The College of Wooster, and we beat them to knock them out. Then we went down to Columbus and beat them, and then we hosted Columbus at Hillsdale High School and beat them to win it. We had a lot of great pitching performances and just a great overall team performance.”
Waynedale graduate Shane Coblentz went 3-for-4 in the championship game with two doubles and four RBI and played stellar defense at shortstop. Collecting two hits each were center fielder Ashton Patterson (Triway) and third baseman Owen Hoffman (Hillsdale).
Wooster graduate Ashton Still, a fourth-year Legion player, pitched a complete-game five-hitter with four strikeouts in the five-inning, run-rule victory.
The rest of the regional final lineup consisted of catcher Tristan Franks (Waynedale), first baseman Jacob Ward (Northwestern), second baseman Jack Fickes (Hillsdale), left fielder Chad Harper (Triway) and right fielder Gavin Casdorph (Hillsdale). Will Carmichael (Dalton), Logan Wyatt (Triway), Owen Walter (Triway) and Garrett Schmidt (Norwayne) also contributed during regional action.
Coblentz leads WC Legion overall with a .484 batting average, followed by Harper (.476), Hoffman (.383), Franks (.350) and Walter (.341). Patterson is hitting .333 with a team-high 16 RBI while Fickes is batting .304 and has scored a team-high 25 runs with 19 stolen bases.
Still has a team-high 29.2 innings pitched and is 2-1 with a 3.03 ERA. He has 23 strikeouts and 15 walks. Wyatt, Fickes, Ward and Casdorph also have logged 10-plus innings.
Having Coblentz and Franks from Waynedale’s state-tested program has had a trickle-down effect on the entire team, Still said.
Area high school teams have had more success collectively at the regional and state levels than ever before the last few seasons, and having players from those successful programs has helped carry the WC Legion.
“When you have those guys who have played in those standout games, there's an accountability,” Still said. “Their talent level has raised the expectations and raised the bar for the whole team.”