Local Legion champ Cannons accomplish plenty

Hopefully the takeaway from the 2016 AAA American Legion baseball season for the Spokane Cannons is what they accomplished - not what was seemingly stolen away from them at season's end.

The Spokane regular season champions - featuring four players from the West Plains: Chance Gleave and Riley Jones from Cheney, along with Medical Lake's Brayden Hale and Cory Wagner - gelled in the second half of the season and went on a tear that earned them a berth in the state tournament in Selah.

But the interpretations of tiebreaker rules left them wondering. The Cannons were ousted in a three-way tie in pool play with Bellingham and Centralia where the unwritten and unpublished rules ended their season.

"Despite a very disappointing ending to our year, the season as a whole was very good," head coach Chad Ripke said. The team finished 27-16, playing 43 games in 53 days. 

"It was a busy summer and one that had its ups and downs," Ripke, Freeman High School's baseball coach and Medical Lake standout athlete, said.

It was a serious challenge to meld top players from a variety of schools into a cohesive team.

"All these guys come off their school ball teams and are their team's best players and they are not used to riding the bench at all," Ripke said. "Then they get to summer ball and we carried 17 guys and I have room for nine or 10 guys to start, so keeping kids and parents happy is a chore."

Ripke thought that element played into a slow start, and some real near misses the first half of the season. But any issues seemed to vanish at the end of June.

"Something clicked after Tri Cities as we played in the Fourth of July (Wood Bat) Tournament and went 4-2 and finished third overall," Ripke said.

Next was a tournament in Whitefish, Mont. where they went 5-1 to finish second. Perhaps the best was going 8-1 and winning the Spokane League regular-season title, their first since 2003, and earning an automatic berth at state. 

"Overall the kids were great," Ripke said. "This was a fun group to coach as there were so many fun personalities."

Ripke wanted to thank assistant coaches Kelly Neely and Dan Wagner. "Both of those guys put in their time, getting paid pennies," he said. "It was a joy to coach with these guys and have great conversations with them." 

While the season was designed to further the growth of players on the field, they had one real-life lesson many will not soon forget.

"Many of these kids will be done playing baseball in the next couple of years possibly," Ripke said, so it was important to sometimes focus away from life between the lines. 

That came from a field trip right in the midst of preparation for the state tournament.

"I took my guys to the Union Gospel Mission on the Thursday before we were to leave for state," Ripke said. "Instead of practicing these guys on the baseball field, I felt it was more important and worthwhile to give them a healthy dose of reality."

Ripke said not one of the kids, either on the Cannons, or with Freeman, ever believes that something like that will happen to them, but it could. 

"At the end of the day, I hope and believe that the experience was eye-opening and worthwhile," he added.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.