Will travel to play some baseball

If you want to play baseball, sometimes you’ve got to go where the baseball is being played. Bureau County players are going in all directions this summer.

Princeton no longer fields an American Legion program, so one place to play is Geneseo. Players from Princeton and Bureau Valley are teaming up for the Henry County American Legion Baseball programs this summer.

Henry Post 31 fields senior and junior Legion squads. Daniel Murray, Michael Murray and Drew Compton of Princeton and John King, Ryan Hix and Michael Weidner are all suiting up for the Henry senior squad.

Princeton’s Dylan Fawcett and BV’s Zach Wallace and Sam Lowers are playing for the junior squad. Wallace earned the Player of the Game honors as the winning pitcher in the season opening win over Oneida. He had four strikeouts and zero earned runs in four innings and drove in two runs at the plate.

Princeton’s Kyle Arnett and Bureau Valley’s Adam Weidner and Lane Danielson are playing for the Henry County Mickey Mantle team (16 and under), along with Mineral’s Dillon Foes.

Aaron Murray of Princeton is the head coach with help from Don King of Manlius and Tom Domino of Geneseo. Other senior squad members include Heath Walker and Sean Walker of Annawan, Ryan Bumphrey of Wethersfield, Nathan Dennison of Kewanee and Jimmy Cheak, Tony Domino, Sam Hamer, Adam Haviland and Austin Yeater of Geneseo.

PHS junior catcher Reid Clary opted to go north to play for the Naperville Chargers, a collection of aspiring baseball talent looking to improve their game each year with the hopes of playing baseball at the next level. The Chargers have games on campus at Northwestern, Northern and ISU, which according to their Web page, “allows kids to showcase their abilities in front of college coaches and pro scouts.”

Clary, who batted .460 with 37 RBIs for Princeton this spring, was recognized as the No. 1 catching prospect and a top 100 prospect by the Prep Baseball Report.

There’s also some PHS players heading East. Brik Wedekind is playing American Legion for the Ottawa Chiefs senior team. He struck out the side in the seventh inning in relief against Champaign last week and started and picked up the win with six innings against East Moline Sunday.