By MIKE HUTSELL
Mike.Hutsell@newsandtribune.com
> SOUTHERN INDIANA —
The Floyds Knobs American Legion Post No. 42 baseball team continues to grow with age as it celebrates its third season locally.
The team is off to its best start in its brief history with a runner-up finish earlier this month at the Mt. Vernon Wood Bat Classic on June 12.
“It’s really continuing its growth,” said coach and coordinator Ricky Romans, who started the club in 2008. “That first year, word of mouth wasn’t really out, and we sort of had to find guys. We’ve reached the point now where kids are asking us to play and local coaches are directing kids to us.”
The club, which hosted Boonville Tuesday night, plays an 11-game regular season schedule and is also a part of three in-season tourneys. The league also holds sectional, regional and state tourneys with each state’s winner moving on to the Great Lakes Regional from Aug. 4-8 in Mattoon, Ill.
Regional winners then play in the American Legion World Series, held Aug. 12-16 at Avista Stadium in Spokane, Wash.
American Legion baseball is a national program that began in 1925 with its first World Series being played in Philadelphia in 1926.
Today, the program registers over 5,400 teams in all 50 states, including Canada and Puerto Rico. Almost 100,000 youths, ages 15 to 19, participate annually. Since its inception, the league has had 10 million players, and nearly 75 percent of current college players are program graduates.
“I think people are starting to get behind it more because Legion ball is generally respected a great deal, not only here in Indiana but across the country,” Romans said. “This is a program that has been around for years and we felt getting an American Legion team back into this area was a natural fit.
“Our goal continues to be not only for our team to grow, but for there to be success in the program as well.”
The local Legion roster includes recent high school graduates Jeremy Juliot (New Albany), Eric Schmitt (Floyd Central), Tyler Rhodes (Charlestown), Chip Hockenbury (South Central), as well as Dalton Wagoner and Dylan Martin (Borden).
There’s also a handful of current high school players from Charlestown, Jeffersonville, Borden, Floyd Central and New Albany.
FLOYDS KNOBS POST 42 ROSTER
No. Name Grade High School Pos. B T
1 Jeremy Juliot 12 New Albany P L L
2 Eric Gibson 11 New Albany C/Inf. R R
3 Devan Thorstad 11 Charlestown 1B R R
4 Chip Hockenbury 12 South Central P/Inf. R R
5 Tyler Barnes 11 Floyd Central OF R R
6 Tanner Wortham 10 Floyd Central C R R
8 Tyler Rhodes 12 Charlestown SS R R
9 Garrett Shanks 10 Floyd Central Inf. R R
10 Joe Murphy 11 Floyd Central OF R R
12 Billy Huttsell 10 Charlestown Util. R R
15 Kyle Craig 11 Borden P/Inf./C R R
16 Dylan Martin 12 Borden Util. R R
17 Eric Schmitt 12 Floyd Central 1B/3B R R
18 Neil Fertig Coll. Jeffersonville OF/1B L R
21 Jeremy Eger 11 Jeffersonville P/OF L L
22 Isaac Crafton 9 Jeffersonville C/Inf. S R
23 Patrick Knight 11 Floyd Central P L L
24 Dalton Wagoner 12 Borden Util. R R
