Mountain Home Royals open season against Bishop Kelly

The Class A American Legion baseball season gets started a week early this year, as the Mountain Home Royals opened at Bishop Kelly last night against the Boise Barons.

The Royals play their first home games Friday night when they host Glenns Ferry for two.

Mark Cotton returns as head coach of the Royals this year after taking last summer off. James Morris will be one of his assistants.

Coach Cotton was pleased with the tryouts for the Royals this year, and likes the team they're putting together.

"We have a pretty full team this year. We have 19 kids, and a lot of young guys.­ I think we have four freshmen and we even have an eighth-grade (student) playing this year, which is pretty unusual for us. I can't remember the last time we had an eighth grader playing Legion ball.

"We have a lot of talent. The high school team this year proved that they could win a lot of baseball games and compete when it comes tournament time, and I think we're looking pretty good thus far."

Cotton hopes the mixture of youth and experience can mesh together into a successful season for the program.

"We have guys who've played Legion ball since they were freshmen and a good core group of guys. Ricky Lee, Tom Hennessey, Brock Morris, Eric Christiansen, and Trevor Woodruff, he's definitely come on strong this year on the bump, and at the plate, and at third base, he's been solid for us all around. He's definitely somebody who helped the high school team get as far as they did, he was a big part of that, so, yeah, as far as experience, we've got a lot of that, and it's looking good.

"You just never know what's going to happen early in the season, especially when you have so many young guys, but hopefully, we can find some chemistry here and get the ball rolling early in the season."

The Royals opened their season last night at Bishop Kelly against the Boise Barons, and have their home opener Friday evening against Glenns Ferry.

"We actually get our season started a little early this year," said Coach Cotton. "We normally don't start in May, so we get it going early in May going to Bishop Kelly. We know they're a powerhouse program in the 4A. They do have a AA team, so it's kind of hard to tell what they're going to be, and playing Glenns Ferry is always fun because a lot of the kids from Mountain Home know the kids from Glenns Ferry and played baseball with them growing up, so that's always a fun game, and the home opener is always something to look forward to."

The first game against Glenns Ferry has a 6 p.m. start on Friday.