Allen Community College’s baseball could easily adopt a new team nickname this season: The Road Warriors.
The Red Devils, whose 2021 season was set to start today with a series at Ottawa University, will likely not play a home game in the friendly confines of Dr. Valis McLean Field on the ACC campus until March at the earliest.
That’s because crews are still installing artificial turf to the infield, noted head coach Clint Stoy.
“We’re looking at about three weeks,” Stoy said, with the obvious weather wildcard likely to affect the scheduling.
For the time being, Allen will play its “home” games at Humboldt’s sports complex and “bouncing back and forth” for practices between Humboldt and using ACC’s indoor facilities when possible.
The investment will be well worth it, Stoy predicts. Allen’s new field will allow it to host tournaments and showcase events, thus improving its recruiting abilities.
But in the short term, being unable to hit the field much in the preseason also adds a layer of mystery surrounding the 2021 Red Devils.
“We’ve got a lot of depth, but we don’t really know necessarily what we have. We know the personnel we have, we just don’t know how they’re gonna fit in the lineup That’s what we’re using our non-conference games for.”
Depth, indeed, is the word of the day for Stoy’s Red Devils.
To wit, he counts between 12 and 15 pitchers on the roster “who can throw strikes and give us a chance to win.”
But Allen doesn’t have the traditional pitching staff, with established starters, long-relievers or late-innings hurlers, either.
“We’ve got a lot of guys who can start. How far they go is how far they go,” Stoy said. “We’ve got guys who can eat up innings in the middle of the game, and we’ve got guys to bring in the back half to hopefully close the door.”
Among the names to watch are Jacob Davenport and Conner Clark, both of whom are in their third year at Allen, Paxton Bryan, a sophomore lefty, Olathe native Alex Dilley, and Alex Belch, a sophomore transfer from Kansas State University.
THE SAME holds true on offense, with Stoy touting his team’s depth.
There’s so much depth, in fact, he’ll likely roll out two separate lineups early in the season to determine who fits where.
Lukas Rich returns as a catcher, as do Kurt Golubski and Jonah Weisner in the infield, and Lucas McCain in the outfield. “Those are guys who’ve had experience in the past, and we’re expecting big things again from them this year.”
