I don’t know about you, but I sure had fun following the Powell Pioneers American Legion A baseball team this season. 

This scrappy bunch, with usually great defense, timely hitting and a stellar pitching rotation, was not only the best team in its conference, but finished as the best team in the state after excising an earlier Cody loss in the state tourney to beat the county rivals twice to win the title. 

They then went and nearly advanced to the title series at a tournament in Havre, Montana, featuring the best teams from most of the states in the Northwest. 

While they may not be coming home from Montana as champs the way they came back from Sheridan last week, they deserve even more praise as they wrap their season for the incredible effort they made in Havre. 

They battled in every game, eking out the two wins and making sure they didn’t make the losses easy to the winning teams. 

As much as anything, these boys ought to be honored for their endurance and dedication to a sport that, this year especially, wiped out a good portion of their summer vacations. Star baseball and tennis player Cade Queen, for instance, is probably already practicing his tennis strokes, as practice for that fall sport began Monday. 

In the last couple of years Pioneers manager Jason Borders has really upped the amount of games the Pioneers are playing — and this year especially upping the level of opponents as well — which I think has clearly shown through in the way that the Pioneers are still able to fight to the finish of games played in early August, at the end of a season that began way back in April (January if you count the start of pitching and hitting practice). 

In all, Powell’s boys of summer played 68 games over that stretch. That’s a lot of baseball. 

For all local prep sports fans, the season not ending until August also means there is very little time to wait before fall sports begin. 

So thanks, Pioneers, for adding some extra excitement to the summer months. And kudos for one incredible season. All of the players and coaches associated with the team ought to be pretty dang proud of themselves, as I would say the people of Powell who cheered you on are exceedingly proud as well.