A new season for the Reedley College baseball team will start on Saturday afternoon at Merced College.
"We have a good mix of veterans and new players that we look to build off the team that went 15-6 last year, said veteran Tiger head coach Steve Pearse.
"We have a shortened 28-game season (24 conference games) so we are jumping right into the fire. We are excited to get going and the players have done a good job with the Covid protocols and getting their work at practice. Playing four games in four days will be different but we feel we will able to be able to handle it."
The tiger roster includes a lot of experienced players. "We do have our number one starter Matthew Mathis (Clovis East) and our closer in Cameron Gallardo (Redwood) back, Pearse, they both had solid years for us in a shortened season."
Pearse expects the freshman will give the team some quality innings in the mound. They are Alex Trukki (Madera), Isaiah Gastelum (Selma), Ryan Friesen (Immanuel), Ronald Rockey (Central), Jayden Jones (San Joaquin Memorial) and Ryan Garza (Central). "We believe they will make up the innings that we lost off last year's staff. We had no left-handed pitching on the roster last year so having a couple of left-handers will obviously be good for us going into the season."
The newcomers that Pearse feels will contribute are BJ Vela (Pleasant Valley Chico),  Leo Arreguin (Selma), Nilen Peoples (Bullard), and Koby Kropf (Clovis).
After facing Merced on Saturday at noon, Reedley will open its home season on Tuesday at 4 pm with a non-conference game with Cerro Cero. As of this writing, no fans are being allowed but officials are working on a possible live feed of the home games.

By: Will Goldbeck