| Kirthart named Jr. Legion coach Thursday, April 19, 2007
By TREVOR ZION BAUKNIGHT
Item Sports Writer
TBauknight@theitem.com
For fans of American Legion baseball in Sumter who can't get enough of the Sumter P-15's, there is reason to celebrate.
Beginning this year, the P-15's will be fielding a junior Legion team comprised mostly of 14-17 year-old players looking for more playing time under the revised age structure that now allows older players to remain a part of the regular team into their first year of college.
Teal Kirkhart, who served as the first base coach for the P-15s, will become the head coach of the junior team.
"When they changed the age format, you started to have a lot of guys who were in college and older high school guys who wanted to come back and play," Kirkhart said. "We wanted this to be an avenue for some of the younger guys to get more playing time."
P-15's manager Wallie Jones said that
Sumter didn't want to jump into sponsoring a junior league team until the league was up and running.
"They've had junior Legion teams for about three years in South Carolina and they've had them in other states for a lot longer," Jones explained. "We felt like it would be a good addition for our state, but I didn't want to jump into this thing until I felt like they had a good organized way to do things. So once they got that league started, and went all the way through the tournaments for a couple of years, I felt like it's something that we can plug into and have a good time doing it."
In the area, Manning-Santee Post 68 fields a junior team in addition to its senior team, and several communities, such as Hartsville, Darlington and Turbeville have only junior teams. The Dalzell-Shaw Jets' departure from Riley Park frees the facility for the Sumter junior team to play those teams, among others, when the senior team is on the road, and vice-versa.
While the senior teams have the chance to advance all the way to the American Legion World Series -- as the P-15's did last year -- the junior team can set a goal of winning a state championship.
Neither Kirkhart nor Jones thinks the junior league will conflict with other developmental baseball programs in the area, such as the one operated by the Sumter County Recreation Department.
"It's always a concern," Kirkhart said. "We've talked to the people at Parks and Recreation, and we're going to work together to make sure we aren't stomping on each other's toes. We all want what's best for the kids.
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