Summit22

The East is very weak imo. Coalfield is the best team on this end of the state and they're not nearly as good as they've been the last two years. If I had to predict the two teams from the East going to the state tournament it would be Coalfield and either UH or Greenback.

Opening Day is today for both Wartburg and Sunbright and I look for Wartburg to travel to Sunbright and win today. Most teams officially open the season next week. Looked like most teams in this region scrimmaged over the weekend and most are scrimmaging this coming weekend (weather dependant). It's officially baseball season! Hope all teams in the region have great seasons!

Have to agree. O.S. and Wartburg return too much talent for them not to be the top 2 teams from this region.

Yeah, there's always the unknown with a new coach coming in so I could see some struggles early. The talent is there though and that can overcome a lot of things in A baseball. Should be a fun season!

Going to be hard for either of those teams to come to Coalfield and win. Coalfield will have the best player again with the older Treece kid. If I had to choose the other team right now it would be Greenback to finish second in their Region. Not sure how Oakdale will hold up since stuff from basketball might carry over with them to baseball. Wartburg and Midway could also be sneaky good and give Greenback a tough game to decide who plays Coalfield for the Region championship.

Oneida is 2A now. So they won't be a factor this year. My list would go: 1. Coalfield- Returns best 2 players in the Treece brothers. Lineup might not be as deep as it's been with them losing 5-6 guys. 2. Greenback- Return pretty much everyone from last year. Should be another good year for them with a new coach. 3. Oakdale- Return most of their group from last year including their 3 best arms. Senior heavy. 4. Wartburg- Return their best 2 arms. Their ace hopefully will be healthy all year and not miss the first 6 weeks of the season. 5. Midway- Return their top 3-4 arms and their best 3-4 hitters. Might give Oakdale a run for that 2nd spot in their district. 6. Oliver Springs- Return everyone from last year, but not as good as Wartburg or Coalfield 7. Harriman- Not as talented as they've been in the past. Good coaches so might sneak up and beat some teams they shouldn't 8. Rockwood- Talent here has fallen way off. I think they struggle this year 9. Sunbright- could be interchangeable with Jellico in the 10 spot. 10. Jellico- Not sure what they have on the diamond. Could be better than Sunbright

Glad to hear that. Greenback has a good group of kids. If I had to pick the 4 teams to make it to the region tournament it would be Coalfield, Greenback, Oakdale, and Wartburg. Coalfield lost the most out of these 4 teams and with Oneida moving to 2a opens the door for Wartburg to be the other team out of that district. Wartburg lost their best hitter and some pitching depth but return their 1 and 2 guys who are juniors this year.

Pretty sure they're having a vote in the next few months about the one-time transfer in high school.

The one that stood out to me was 19 on the defensive line. Big and fast for his age. I’m surprised he’s not playing for the maroon or red and black team over in Blount county but I could see him ending up there.

They were pretty good up front on the defensive side of the ball. They didn’t have much luck moving it on offense though. Should be interesting to see where that program is in a few years.

They’ve had 3 different kids kicking PATs for them this year and none of them have been consistent. I’m not sure they work that much on the kicking game.

I don’t think they trust anybody on their team kicking extra points. Even though the kid kicking tonight made the first 2. I don’t hate the decision to go for 2 with under 2 minutes left and if they had missed the PAT they wouldn’t have gotten the ball back unless they recovered the onside kick since they were out of timeouts.

Yes, the turnover that ended up not being a turnover was a momentum killer after #6 for Wartburg made an unbelievable 1 handed catch for a touchdown to tie the game.

Wartburg's offense has looked better since they've changed quarterbacks. I think Wartburg is able to win this one close with it being homecoming.

Oakdale does have some great athletes. That senior class they have this year has been good all 4 years there. There will be a massive drop off for Oakdale after this year in all sports.

I wish TSSAA would wait a month or so before having schools turn in numbers. A month after Wartburg turned in 383, they were down to around 370 and got down to around 350 by the end of the school year with kids transferring out, home school, etc... There are so many kids walking the halls at Wartburg you look at and think they should be playing sports, but none of them have any interest. Not saying those kids would make big impacts, but they would add depth and that matters in football by being able to keep guys fresh late in games.

Yes, they are. Both of the Treece brothers are great baseball players.

I've been saying for years that Morgan County should consolidate to make 1 high school, but that will never happen.

I just want to know what kids Coalfield has this year that has transferred from bigger schools. I only know of 1 kid that was from Clinton that enrolled at Coalfield last year as a freshman, and I believe he only plays baseball (could be wrong about that). He played his freshman year, but then hardly saw the field last year as a sophomore when the other Treece kid played with the high school as an 8th grader last year. I'm not saying recruiting doesn't happen, but they're not dipping into the bigger schools around them like you are claiming.

Who all is out for Wartburg? I know their big left tackle hasn't played at all this year due to a knee injury and will not be playing on Friday. Other than that I didn't know they had any injuries.

Never thought I'd see the day all 3 were as down as they are right now. I still believe Oneida will come out with a win this Friday though.

Probably will be low scoring. Should be a close game. This isn't like the Oneida teams of the past and Wartburg has improved. If Oneida thinks they can just show up and win the game, they will be going home with a loss on Friday night.

It is very nice to see! In the past, the team would've quit when they got down 2 scores. They've definitely taken a step in the right direction. We will see what happens in 2 weeks when they have to go to Oneida.

I agree with you. They’re much better when they let their quarterback run and not worry about him getting hurt. He tends to hold the ball too long when he passes and that leads to the turnovers.

Agreed. #7 for them was the best player on the field but he got hurt a couple times and their biggest plays was when stuff broke down and he just scrambled around and made something happen.