Royals host season opener

The Mountain Home Royals open their American Legion Class A baseball season this week.

The Royals were scheduled to host Glenns Ferry for two games Tuesday and play in a tournament at Storey Park in Meridian Thursday through Sunday.

Royals head coach Mark Cotton is pleased with the talent he has this summer.

"We'll have a full roster like we did last year, probably around 17 or 18 guys. We lost some of the older guys -- Brock Morris, Devan Wilkinson and Jon McCabe -- those guys are really going to be missed. They were awesome this year on the high school team, and we lose two good pitchers in Devan and McCabe, and obviously Brock was the leader of the infield this year in high school and played a great shortstop.

"But we've got some younger guys coming up that look pretty good, and we've got Trevor Woodruff back, and Eric Christiansen, so we do have some veteran guys back that have played Legion ball for quite a few years, and hopefully, they'll carry the flag for us.

" I think we're going to have a good year this year."

The Royals' schedule has tournaments the first three weekends of the season. Coach Cotton sees that as giving his guys plenty of playing opportunities.

"I think it's going to be an exciting summer for the kids. It's high stakes, and those guys will have a chance to prove themselves early on in the season."

Coach Cotton will have some new old faces as part of his coaching staff this summer.

"James Morris decided last year was his last year doing it, and we're really going to miss James. He's been doing it for the past four or five years with us, and we'll definitely miss him. We've got Brent Young back, it's great to have him back. He'll be working with our outfielders and our hitters, and Mike DesPres, his last year with us was '06, and he's back from playing some college baseball. He's going to coach the pitching staff, and then Ricky Baker's going to come back and work with our catchers and our hitters as well, so we've got a lot of new faces in our coaching staff, but we're really looking forward to working with these guys.

"I loved coaching them and I think they'll really help out the team."

The Royals open the Meridian tourney at 4 p.m. Thursday against Nampa at Storey Park in Meridian. They have an 8 a.m. game Friday against Idaho Falls. The tourney runs through Sunday.