D-R-S baseball to open Sunday, May 1

The Dakota-Rice-Scott amateur baseball league is scheduled to begin its 65th year this coming Sunday, May 1.

Five games are slated for the Sunday opener. At 2 p.m. Elko is at Shakopee, Montgomery at Union Hill, New Market at Webster and Prior Lake plays at Veseli. St. Patrick plays at St. Benedict in a game at 4 p.m.

Night games scheduled during the week have Lons-dale opening at New Prague on Mon., May 2; and Union Hill at New Prague and Veseli at Shakopee on Wed., May 4. Those three games all start at 7:30 p.m.

Teams will be competing for the chance to play in the regional tournaments and the State Baseball Class C Tournament, which this year will be held at Brownton and Glencoe in late August and concludes on Mon., Sept. 5.

Each D-R-S team will play a 23-game schedule except for Elko, which will play 12 league games. Elko has been moved up and plays in the Class B playoffs.

This season's league divisional alignments are: Red - Elko, Faribault, Lonsdale, New Prague, and Veseli; White - Montgomery, Prior Lake Mudcats, Shak-opee Coyotes and St. Patrick; and Blue - New Market, St. Benedict, Union Hill and Webster.

A preview of the teams:

- Red Division -

ELKO EXPRESS -

Terry Fredrickson returns for his 36th year as manager. Coach John Roiger is retiring after 21 years with Elko.

The team had a 31-8 overall record last year.

Elko will again have a fine mound staff as pitchers returning are Brian Muell, Dylan Thomas, Glenn Parker, Lee Frandrup and Rob Brick. Corey Grisim is back for behind the plate duty along with newcomer Zack Braun. Jeremy Chlan, Jason Grimm, Ash Larsen and Thomas will lead the hitters. Chlan, Kyle Kalina, Dan Ellefson and Tres Humerickhouse are back as infielders and in the outfield Larsen and Ryan VanDusen return. Newcomer John Hayes and Nick Kulla have been added to the team and Nick Davis will not be on the roster.

Manager Fredrickson rates New Prague, St. Patrick and St. Benedict as teams to beat in league play.

The team will play in the Cannon Falls tourney on June 10, 11 and 12 and in the Hinckley tourney on June 24, 25 and 26.

Besides playing a 12-game D-R-S League schedule the team will be playing a busy schedule of Class B teams during the season including playing in Section 5 with Lakeville, Burnsville and Eagan.

FARIBAULT LAKERS -

This will be the Lakers' second year in the league. Charlie Lech-tenberg will be the player-manager. Last year the Lakers won four league games.

Their roster this year includes:

Pitchers - Evan Knutson, Alex Olson and Jimmy Roberts; hitters - Ryan Archambault, newcomer Nate Rost, Josh Mears and Adam Jensen; catchers - Roberts and Rost; infielders - Jon Mielke, Adam Kline, Jake Stocker and newcomer Joey Grote; and outfielders Brendan Sjodin, Eddie Gillen, Lechtenberg and newcomer Jay Ellerbusch. Scott Barta and Josh Sjodin are retiring. Other newcomers are Phil Holz, Jose Carreon and Josh Scheffler. Archambault will be the assistant coach.

Lechtenberg rates New Prague, New Market and St. Patrick among the top D-R-S teams. He says, We have a lot of new guys this year