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LAUREL — Despite not having its own Legion baseball program, several Laurel-Concord-Coleridge athletes are still getting their summer baseball “fixes” on area teams this season.
Dylan Taylor, Koby Detlefsen and Drey Puppe have taken their baseball talents up to the Hartington Post 4 Junior and Senior Legion programs; Tanner and Turner Thompson along with Weston Patefield are playing with the Wakefield Post 81 Junior and Senior Bullsnakes; and Tyler Olson heads south to play for the Pender Frontier Bank Post 55 Senior Legion.
Dustin Thompson, along with Tanner and Turner is spending a lot of his summer nights in the dugouts at Eaton Field in Wakefield and around northeast Nebraska as a coach.
“It was a way to get more kids in baseball and keep them on the field,” said Wakefield manager Mason Nixon. “It is working out great for everybody involved.”
With declining enrollments and participation, sports co-ops and consolidations are as common as mosquitoes in late June here in Nebraska, and the joint ventures truly are a “win-win.”
In fact, not only are the players doing the traveling, extending their baseball experience, the teams they are playing on reap the benefits of the extra help.
“We would have been borderline on fielding a team without these guys,” said Nixon. “And they are some pretty good players. For them to make the sacrifices of practice time and game time is great and we welcome them with open arms.
“It’s crucial from a numbers perspective to have these Laurel kids come down and play with us and we have the tradition and a great place to play. I came back to help keep the tradition going here. We get the kids who want to play for the ‘love of the game’ and these kids fit in with all of us.”
“I don’t mind putting in the time to make sure these kids still get the opportunity to play baseball,” said the elder Thompson. “I really enjoy the game and keeping my kids around baseball is important.
“I appreciate Wakefield taking us all in. They took in my boys last year and I decided to step up and help out this year. It’s an awesome place to play. We are really enjoying playing baseball.”
And the players feel welcome as well. “I’ve been coming to Hartington for a while so I’m used to it, I love baseball so this was a great opportunity,” said Detlefsen. “I have some good friends here and we’re all teammates, it’s been great.”
“You compete against some of these guys in other sports all year and now you really get to know them,” said Taylor. “I’ve met some guys over the years that are not just baseball friends, but guys I can hang out with all year long.”
“It’s pretty awesome, I have known quite a few of the guys for a while,” said Puppe who is in his first year at Hartington. “My brothers came up here so I’m really comfortable.”
