GLENVILLE -
The WVIAC will have another baseball team competing this season as Glenville State gets set to kick off its season next week.
Getting this team together in less than a year has been tough, but that's not an excuse it'll be using as the season goes on.
"It looked rough, it looked like a rag-tag team at first, it looked like the 'Bad News Bears 'basically and from there it's just grown into what you see now," lone senior Jeremy Tindell said.
The 'Morris Buttermaker' in our story is new head coach Tom Gilbert, but Gilbert is no sauced-up pool cleaner. The former WVU catcher and professional baseball scout spent seven years with the Baltimore Orioles with plenty of success. Gilbert took over the program in June, not giving him much of a head start on recruiting, but if the Bad News Bears could do it, why not the Pioneers?
"We know where we stand, we know that everybody thinks that they should beat us. This year we're kind of working with what we have, we're pretty pleased with what we have left, we have seventeen players, but we're real happy with that seventeen," head coach Tom Gilbert added.
"We all understand that it's a new program, we understand that there's going to be a lot of people looking down at us and probably under estimating us a little bit and we're all looking forward to the challenge and we know it's going to be tough, but we're ready for it," freshman Tucker Abruzzino said.
Like the movie, the 'Ringers' Gilbert has brought in are nine freshman, six sophomores and juniors, and a single senior. There will be bumps along the way no doubt, but this team is rallying around the underdog mantra, and wants to compete right away.
"I'm here to win, so I don't care about where we are as far as our first program, it's our first year. I can't think any different We're here to win, we're here to win a championship and let's just say that every team that plays us thinks they're in a game," Gilbert stated.
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2012 WorldNow and WBOY. All Rights Reserved.
