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Schultz likes competitive nature of Alpena’s baseball team

News Photo by James Andersen The Alpena baseball team is, left to right, back: head coach Phil Schultz, assistant coach Scott MacKenzie, Logan Guthrie, Chris DeRocher, Ben Budnik, Cam DeCaire, Lucas Crosby, Noah Kent, Josh Lucas and assistant coach Tim Hoes; front: Bruz Copping, Chandler Lantz, Cam Cosbitt, Aidan Goike, Bailey Marquardt, Lars MacArthur and Brendan Dacey. Missing is assistant coach Nate Barden.

When he looks at his roster for the 2017 season, Alpena baseball coach Phil Schultz has a lot of reasons to like his team.

The Wildcats have a solid mix of veterans and youngsters.

The 14-player roster is a competitive one.

Alpena’s pitching rotation is talented and deep.

Added all together, these reasons and more give Schultz every reason to believe his team will be a tough one to compete with as the season goes on.

“The thing I like about the team overall is there’s not a big gap or drop-off from anybody we put into the game. There’s a lot of competition on the team,” Schultz said. “Talent-wise, this is a good group. I had to make some tough cuts and it was not an easy thing to do.”

Seven players on the Wildcats’ roster are seniors, three are juniors and four are sophomores, giving Alpena a good mix of players Schultz hopes will be contenders this season and in the future.

Chief among Alpena’s goals this season is getting back to competing for the Big North Conference title. After winning the conference crown in 2015, Alpena fell to third place last season. With this year’s players being a competitive bunch, Schultz thinks his team should be right in the thick of the conference race all season.

“We’re going to compete. Traverse City West had a great year last year and they should be good again, but I think we’ll be able to compete and be right in the thick of things,” Schultz said. “We’ve got a good bunch of kids who like to compete, so we should be right there.”

On the mound, Alpena will have no shortage of options as 10 players have pitching experience, though Alpena will regularly use eight of them. Junior Lars MacArthur leads an experienced staff which includes seniors Cam DeCaire and Ben Budnik, juniors Chandler Lantz and Lucas Crosby and sophomores Bruz Copping, Logan Guthrie, Aidan Goike and Chris DeRocher.

“Overall the kids have worked hard. They’ve been working in the gym in the offseason and we’ve got some kids. They’re throwing strikes and that’s key,” Schultz said. “There’s nobody who’s overpowering, but they throw strikes and (continuing to work) on two or three difference pitches is key.”

While Alpena will have plenty of options, Schultz and his staff may have to keep an eye on their rotations later in the season. A new pitch count rule for baseball has gone into effect for this season, requiring pitches to have a pre-determined number of rest days depending on how many pitches they throw in a game.

A pitcher requires no rest if he throws 25 pitches or less, one day of rest for 26-50 pitches, two days rest for 51-75 pitches and three days rest for more than 75 pitches.

“It forces me to look ahead and maybe get some kids more pitching time,” Schultz said. “When you get into the season when we’re playing more in May, it may affect us then.”

In the field, Budnik and DeRocher will likely split time at first base and seniors Cam Cosbitt and Bailey Marquardt will likely split time at catcher. MacArthur, senior Noah Kent, Goike, DeCaire, senior Brendan Dacey, Crosby and Copping could all see time in the rest of the infield spots.

In the outfield, MacArthur, Marquardt, senior Josh Lucas, Guthrie, Goike, DeRocher, Dacey and Cosbitt could all see playing time.

The Wildcats opened the season on Thursday at home and Schultz he is still tinkering with lineups.

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