View from the cheap seats

A weekly perspective on sports

Casey Krautkramer Reporter The Record-Review

Sports teams comprised of high school players, which are not affiliated with local school districts during the coronavirus pandemic, have begun to play games this summer.

My challenge now is finding out which teams of players from Athens, Edgar, Marathon and Stratford are currently playing games and when they’ll be held.

You can read my story on pages 8-9 in this week’s sports section on how new Edgar High School varsity baseball skipper Connor Handrick, the son of Heath and Valerie Handrick, and his three graduating senior baseball players Austin Miller, Tyler Westfall and Dakota Stahel competed in 18U action on Friday against an opponent for the first time this year.

I discovered an AAU boys basketball team comprised of Stratford, Auburndale and Marshfield Columbus high school players competed in their first tournament this past weekend in Wisconsin Dells. I’ll print action pictures taken during their two games played in next week’s The Record-Review.

Now, I heard there is a 2020 Pride U17 baseball team including local high school players that is scheduled to play against Stevens Point at 5:30 p.m. this Friday, July 26, at Jack Hackman Field in Marshfield.

The 2020 Pride U17 baseball team includes high school players from Athens, Stratford, Marshfield, Spencer, Neillsville and Plover. It looks like new Athens High School varsity head baseball coach Todd Diethelm is one of the Pride U17 squad’s assistant coaches.

I’ve reached out to Todd to find out names of the Athens and Stratford baseball players on the Pride U17 team, but I assume his son, Dayne Diethelm, is one of the boys on the squad.

I heard Drew Spaeth, who is a Stratford assistant varsity baseball coach, is the head coach of a team in Marshfield with area players who were going to compete on an American Legion team before this season got cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic. A few years ago, I wrote a sports story on Spaeth being the ace pitcher for the Marshfield Chaparalls amateur baseball team. Since then, he got hired as a fourth grade teacher at Stratford Elementary School and he is the Tigers varsity team’s pitching coach. Spaeth helped Stratford’s pitchers win a state baseball championship last season for the first time in school history.

Steve Warren is also probably coaching a team comprised of Marathon high school players not affiliated with the school district or American Legion. I just need people to let me know at ckrautkramer@tpprinting. com what teams are playing.