Finishing fourth at the state tournament a year ago with a mostly new team stemmed from a year of growth for the Powell Pioneers. However, with changes coming to Wyoming Legion Baseball this year, the Pioneers are ready to take on a new set of challenges should they want to reach their season goal — advancing to a regional tournament.

Legion baseball has done away with the ‘A’ and ‘AA’ classifications for this season, as the new combined league will be referred to as Senior Legion Baseball, featuring 23 teams, 12 in the north and 11 in the south.

This year the Pioneers return a number of players from last year’s team, with manager Jason Borders noting strong senior leadership and more familiarity with the players will allow  the team to progress earlier this season compared to last.

“Last year, with a lot of them not playing varsity, we were a little behind. We weren’t sure what we were going to expect,” Borders said. “It was a whole new level. Again, it’s going to be similar because we’re moving up into ‘AA’, but they have a good idea of what we want to do every night at practice. How we coach, everybody is just more comfortable with each other … There’s a lot of senior leadership on this team. There’s a lot of confidence with some guys going to college to play baseball.”

The Pioneers return several All-State players from a season ago, including super senior Caden Diaz, senior Abel Teten and junior Ben Ostermiller, with Borders hopeful super senior Jordan Loera will also return for the Pioneers once his college baseball season is over in Miles City.

Powell returns each of its top three arms from a year ago in terms of innings pitched, including Ostermiller and Diaz in addition to senior Kolby Gates who all recorded 65 or more innings.

While returning those three arms, Borders is hopeful the team will show some additional promise on the mound as he knows pitching will continue to be important in this new look season.

“You’re going to see some arms this year that will surprise you. I saw a lot of really good things this winter in the indoor,” Borders said. “We put a lot of work into our pitching staff … It kept us in games [last year]. We had two of the best pitchers in the state. Whether Jordan ever comes back and can throw, that’s going to be key for us too. Because he was that good guy that threw 15 pitches at the end of a game. Get you out of some stuff. So we’ve got to kind of find that guy, hopefully we get Jordan back pitching.”

The Pioneers are hopeful they will be able to hit the ball better than a year ago, which ended up being the team’s undoing at the state tournament.

“I felt like we didn’t hit the ball as well as we were capable of,” Borders said. “Again, we put a lot of work in this winter. I’m hoping to see that change this year, but we’re going to see pretty good pitching too.”

Returning plenty of experience will be important for the Pioneers to get a jumpstart on their season. They will also add  several players to the rotation who made some appearances last year and will be hoping to make a bigger impact.

“Carter [Fauskee] he grew a lot over the last year. From last season to this season he’s bigger and stronger, which you can expect out of a 16-year-old,” Borders said. “We didn’t have Rhyder [Stewart] a lot this winter, he was with the basketball team so he missed out on some crucial stuff in the indoor … We can play Christian [Love] … He’s solid out there … We’ve just got to get these younger guys to step up and learn quick. And I think they will. A lot of them, August [Teten], Carter and Rhyder all got to go to that ‘AA’ tournament in Gillette last year when all our seniors were graduating. So they got an idea of what it’s like. They’re hungry for the opportunity.”

Bringing back experience is important for the Pioneers this year but Borders said that doesn’t mean there won’t be competition, with the only likely positions secured being Talon Nuss at shortstop, Abel Teten in center field, Dominik Bieber at first base and either Ostermiller or Diaz at third base.

“The catcher position is still up in the air. I don’t want Ben to catch a lot, Ben’s probably our No. 1 catcher,” Borders said. “So we’ve got to figure out our catcher. Dakota [Erickson], Rowan [Diaz] and August are all kind of battling for that spot … But we’re pretty solid.”

Heading into the long season Borders knows how important it is for the team to get off to a good start and get their feet under them early, feeling the Pioneers have played enough good teams to get off to a strong start.

“There’s a lot of pressure on all of us, doesn’t matter if it’s us, or Cody or Lovell … We see Sheridan, we see Gillette every now and again at their tournaments,” Borders said. “We play some good teams throughout the year. I think these guys have played enough good baseball teams that they’re not going to be affected by it too much.”

Come season’s end the Pioneers want to still reach their ultimate goal despite the increased competition level, as they’ll need to finish top four in the conference and advance all the way to the state championship game in the Division 1 State Tournament in Gillette in late July.

“I think that’s everybody’s goal … That’s the only way to go to a regional. That’s our goal every year is to go to a regional,” Borders said. “It used to be you had to be ‘A’ state champions to go to a regional. Now we’ve got to be in the championship game of the ‘AA’ tournament. The only way to get to do that is if you’re in that tournament. Our goal is to be one of the top four in our conference, and we’ll see where that goes. I feel we got a pretty good draw for conference games.”

Powell heads on the road to start its season, going to Casper on Sunday for a doubleheader, taking on the best of the three Casper teams in the Oilers at 1 and 3 p.m.

“We’ve just got to go play some baseball,” Borders said. “They’re going to learn a lot from that first weekend, I hope we find out who we are. I don’t know if we’ll really figure it out in two games, but we just need to go play somebody else … We’re kind of getting tired of this whole practice thing, so it’d be nice to go play a game and try to find out where we are or what we need to work on to get better.”