Coach Will Gillis had a tough start to his Shawano American Legion coaching career. His team was 2-10 in the Fox River Valley League Western Division last year.
Gillis says Shawano will win more games in his second year.
“It wasn’t a real cohesive group,” Gillis said. “This group is a lot more cohesive; they’ve played together all year round. Last year, we kind of had to piece things together between a couple of varsity guys, a couple of JV guys and a couple of guys who didn’t even play high school ball.”
The team is made up of Shawano Community High School athletes, most of whom played on varsity this season.
“I anticipate us performing much better than we did last year,” Gillis said. “We’re still in a tough league, some of those Valley teams that we play are really good. We were competitive in the bulk of our games last year. A lot of those close games, I see us sneaking a few out.”
One reason for optimism is Shawano’s bullpen.
“Our pitching staff is a lot deeper than it was last year,” Gillis said. “We have three varsity starting pitchers, which wasn’t the case last year.”
Taylor Prey took most of the innings a year ago, with an inexperienced Grant Wainio and mix of other guys getting the rest of the innings.
“Wainio pitched, and he was a junior varsity kid last year,” Willis said. “He did a great job for us.”
Prey and Wainio, who got seasoning during the high school season, are back. Clint Dallas, who also spent time on the mound during the high school season, is also in the mix.
Center fielder Chase Henning returns after leading the team with a .393 average a year ago and making the FRV All-Star team.
“Chase is a big stick, for sure,” Willis said. “He crushes the ball.”
Willis said Prey has really improved at the plate. Versatile slugger Ky Schmidt will also be a factor.
“He can put the ball where he wants to put it,” Gillis said. “He’s got tremendous baseball knowledge. He knows what he’s doing up there.”
The Shawano team has no returning 19-year-olds on the team.
“We filled it up with kids from the high school team,” Gillis said.
There were enough players in the program to have a Junior Legion team this season.
“The freshman kids are pretty much playing Junior Legion,” Gillis said. “There’s not a lot of sophomores. … There weren’t enough kids last year for two teams.”
Gillis hopes that will benefit the program in the long run.
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