Season opener today, of course the weather stinks this week but then again it wouldn't be High School baseball with out it in Ohio. Orrville has good chance of starting out the week 4-0.

Always Lookin;1127700 wrote:Old Rider may be right about Orrville Baseball going down hill but it wouldnt hurt to be a little positive.Lets root for all the sports teams in town,all the kids in all the sports work very hard.

I totally agree! Best of luck to all the Red Rider teams. I hope the baseball team turns things around this year. They are talented. Good luck!

I fully support the Riders and wish them all the luck. Anyone who knows me would say the same...I am just very passionate about winning!

Orrville wins 11-5, very sloppy game but some clutch hitting and pitching. Dalton is young but outfield needs lots of improvement, several balls that should have been caught that weren't. Will find out how deep our pitching is in week 1, 3 more games in a row, don't think we can count on anybody throwing complete games this early in the season.

We also gave up 8 walks...ouch.

Thats one way to let a team in a game...give them free passes to first base all day. But that is to be expected in the first couple of games. Nice to start the season with a win.:thumbup:

Orrville 6
Mansfield Senior 1

Orrville 3-0 beat Senior tonight 10-0

Norwayne 3
Orrville 2

THE4RINGZ;1081554 wrote:My prediction...

This thread gets less than 100 legitimate posts, and Wooster wins the OCC again this year.

We are up to 33 posts, Orrville is 5 ~ 1 , and Wooster is not looking so good! ....lol

Make it 34 5 and 1 ,yes you are and that is great.Pitching looks good,very few errors,very few mental mistakes.Lets keep up the hard work.Now all Orrville needs is Scout back in the pressbox.HaHa

It's always interesting to know other's thoughts on the current state of Orrville Baseball. One thing's for sure - there's really no middle ground. There might be people who are trying to be polite and stick to the rules of this forum or don't want to jeopordize their kid's shot at playing baseball but if they spoke their minds you'd find an overwhelming number of them are ready for a change. Orrville hasn't had a winning season during Marshall 's 6 years as coach. Some blame that on the lack of emphasis on baseball. After all, Orrville is football first, then basketball and somewhere way down the list you'll find out that, oh yeah, we have a baseball team, too. I've never understood that argument because that same dynamic exists at every school. Football and basketball will always come first because they generate revenue that helps offset the costs of the other sports. If lack of focus on baseball is Orrville's problem then why isn't it a problem for all high school baseball programs?

Consider this: Last year 6 juniors earned varsity letters yet there are only 3 seniors on the team this year. Do you think they decided not to play baseball because of football or basketball? The number of Juniors lost from last year is even worse and one of those was the younger Infield brother who could have made a tremendous contribution in centerfield and was a strong hitter.

There must be some other reason why Orrville kids stop playing baseball when they get to high school.

Mr. 300 asked why the middle school doesn't compete in the Wayne/Holmes Summer Baseball program. If by "compete" you mean "participate" they did last year. In the years prior to that they competed in the Stark/Summit league. The reason given was that by playing tougher competition they would become better players. The actual result was that in almost every game Orrville was run-ruled sometimes by 20 or more runs. The humiliation many of those boys felt was evident on their faces and drove many of them out of the sport. Moving to the Wayne/Holmes league was done over the objections of Scott Marshall and our boys still struggle to be competitive there.

HitsRus said, "Coach Marshall invested a lot in youth programs, I'd expect (hope) to see some payoff in that."

Here's what Scott Marshall had to say about youth programs, "The big thing is, and the message I hope the younger kids in Orrville get, is most of the kids on this field play travel baseball, which is a big difference”. This is taken from the March 29, 2011 Daily Record after Orrville beat Dalton in the first game of last season. Orrville went on to a 9 and 16 season. Now put yourself in the position of a parent trying to make ends meet with a kid who loves to play baseball. Travel baseball is expensive. Thousands of dollars expensive. Then you read that the head coach and youth baseball commissioner (yes, that's right - he made that statement while he was the commissioner of Orrville Youth Baseball) is biased against your kid unless you play travel baseball. Recreational baseball won't cut it.

I don't know when Scott Marshall was made youth baseball commissioner, but I do know that since he has been head coach Orrville youth baseball has gone from having 10 Major League Youth teams down to 3 this year.

OFB heard that not enough kids went out to field a JV team. That was true until two weeks before the first game and one the parents talked several kids into playing who haven't played baseball since 6th grade. The alternative was having a varsity roster of 19 kids - 8 of them would go the entire season without playing a single inning.

Finally, Always Lookin wrote, "Old Rider may be right about Orrville Baseball going down hill but it wouldnt hurt to be a little positive. Lets root for all the sports teams in town, all the kids in all the sports work very hard." I'm all for being positive. It really boils down to two possible reasons for declining participation and a losing record - lack of talent or bad leadership. I think we've had (and have) plenty of talent. It's time they had some positive leadership.

Very well said.....I couldnt agree more

Rock turner has a very well thought out and written first post.

Just for some clarification, of the 3 seniors not playing 1 was recruited by the track coach and is now running track, one of the other was recovering from an injury and decided not to play, the last one has taken scouts job and is the announcer of the ball games. Not defending anybody just getting the facts straight.

Here's what Scott Marshall had to say about youth programs, "The big thing is, and the message I hope the younger kids in Orrville get, is most of the kids on this field play travel baseball, which is a big difference

...and so what's your point? That travel ball is hurting the high school team? Marshall is dead on with that statement. The 'game' has changed in the past ten years.... if you want to play HS baseball, you better be playing travel ball, 'cause rec leagues just aren't cutting it anymore. A lot of communities have gone to 'community travel leagues' where they pit their best against other communties best. Personally, I'm not in favor of that especially with the younger kids, but that's what's going on. If your kid isn't on one of those types of teams, he just not getting the experience.
Secondly, You're damn right that football rules the roost. Even ten years ago when my kid played Legion ball, it was always a problem with the Orrville kids cutting out early to play football...even when the District 10 tournament was going on.

Marshall is a good coach, and you are damn lucky to have him.

Huge series coming next week with Orrville and West Holmes. If either team sweeps, it sets up a big showdown with Ashland, although Orrville still has to play Wooster.

Travel baseball has taken America by storm and is the way "youth baseball" is going now. Orrville never has been a baseball power.....and it probably will never be a baseball power. When I was growing up, everyone played Orrville youth baseball, but we also had a lot of support with great coaches, and coaches that really knew the game of baseball and taught us the game of baseball. Back then, we played 25 league games with just Orrville kids, and then had an All-Star team that played Wayne county teams for another 12-15 games. We would be playing into August. Now, the Orrville youth baseball teams are playing 12-15 games at the most and are done before summer really starts. I think another thing that has hurt the sport is the "specialization" going on.....kids and parents want to spend the money to be good in 1 sport and hope to get a scholarship in that sport....but by doing that you lose numbers and talent in the other sports at the school.....if you play football in Orrville, 80% of those kids will be running track to work on speed and agility for football. Not to mention football activity starts in June, so kids are working on football in the summer, not baseball. Complaining about Orrville baseball or should I say Coach Marshall won't make the talent in Orrville any better. If you have lived in Orrville you know the importance of sports goes like this:

Football
Basketball
Track


Coach Marshall is 6-1 this season with those boys who played travel baseball and have at least a year of varsity baseball under their belt....let's enjoy this talent while we have it here in Orrville and support the baseball team like we would football or basketball.


Go Riders.

Amen OQB

Good luck this week against West Holmes!

Orrville 7
WH 3

Red Rider;1141234 wrote:Orrville 7
WH 3

Now 7-1 & 5-0 in OCC. each win brings more legitimacy to their fast start.

JJ Huddle OCC thread reporting Wooster was beat by Mansfield SR 10-3. Can anyone verify this???

Great team win tonight! Do it again tomorrow!

Great job Riders! Now do it again tomorrow night!

Good pitching and timely hitting wins games.

Lady Riders softball team also off to a 8-0 start and 5-0 in the OCC.

Keep it up Riders!