The A Iola Indians will lead off their 2020 summer season with a home tournament next weekend at the Humboldt Sports Complex.
Iola’s home tournament will consist of four teams, including Urquhart Baseball 16U, Ottawa Junior Legion, Montgomery County Cardinals, and the A Iola Indians. Each team will play once in a round-robin format on Saturday, followed by a seeded four-team single elimination tournament on Sunday.
Times for the games are still in progress, but updates will be made available at iolaregister.com.
Originally, the Indians planned for a tournament to be held in Ottawa on June 5-7, but those plans fell by the wayside after tournament officials canceled the event. Iola also planned to face Chanute on June 1 and 3, but have replaced those games with intrasquad scrimmages.
The Indians intrasquad scrimmages will start at 6 p.m. from the Humboldt Sports Complex on Monday and Wednesday. It will give many of the youngsters their first opportunity to go head-to-head on the diamond after the spring high school baseball season was canceled.
The Indians will stay busy throughout the month of June, traveling to Pittsburg and Ottawa for games during the week on June 9 and June 11. Iola will then travel to the Fort Scott Tournament slated for June 13 and 14. Iola’s only other tournament for the month will be in Emporia on June 20 and 21.
Last summer, the A Indians fell short in the semifinals of the Kansas American Legion A State Tournament. The only faces returning from a season ago are Iola’s TJ Taylor, Cooper Riley, Drake DeLaTorre, and Crest’s Trevor Church.
If the Indians plan to make it back to the state tournament, they will need to use the month of June to steadily improve, and get their high number of Legion rookies ready to play ball.
