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Eastern Randolph Post 81

Post 81 Samuel Asbill pitches in 2022

Post 81 sponsors younger team, skips American Legion season

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Eastern Randolph Post 81 pitcher Samuel Asbill throws to a Foothills batter last year. This year, Asbill is on the Randolph County Post 45 roster. (PJ Ward-Brown/Randolph Record)

RAMSEUR – There’s no American Legion baseball season for Eastern Randolph Post 81 this year, but planning for the future is being emphasized.

Low player availability surfaced last year. Without a clear remedy for that, organizers opted to focus on younger players who might help revive the program.

“We didn’t want to field a team with 11 guys and then not be able to play some nights,” said Nate Cockman, who was in his first season as head coach of the team last year. “We didn’t want to get a bad rap with that.”

So after a 2022 season that included on-field success but other struggles, Post 81 has taken a pause on the American Legion level.

“We decided we just weren’t going to be able to field a team,” Cockman said. “We didn’t want to be back in that situation again. It’s a tough one to swallow right now, but this is best for the long term.”

Instead, the Legion post is sponsoring a team in a combined Pony/Colt league. These are players ages 13-16. The Post 81 entry has 16 players in a league based out of Chatham County. Games in the five-team league are held Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays at Chatham Central.

Last year, Post 81 held an 18-9 record in games played, though two of those were overturned based on a player eligibility issue to give it a 16-11 mark (prior to the forfeited Area 3 semifinal series because of a lack of players).

In April, a meeting to assess player interest revealed up to nine players who could be committed to play the full season, with a few others falling into a part-time category.

Generally, Post 81 draws high school players attending Eastern Randolph, Providence Grove and Faith Christian with some assistance from Southern Alamance and Chatham County players. No Alamance County players signed up to play this year.

Complicating matters was that Chatham County Post 93 returned to American Legion baseball to field a team and is based at Jordan-Matthews High School.

The Pony/Colt team, which won four of its first five games, is made up of players who could rise into future Post 81 players. Cockman said participating in the league in Chatham County seemed like a better option than trying to field a Junior American Legion team.

“I didn’t want it to put them in that situation where they wouldn’t have success,” he said. “I want to give our guys a fair opportunity. This is a good way to introduce them.”

Unless there’s widespread interest next year in the upper grades, Post 81 might choose the Junior American Legion route for 2024, Cockman said, calling it “almost a rebuild.”

Cockman is a coach at Southeastern Randolph Middle School in Ramseur.

“We’re trying to start young and work our way back through,” he said. “This is the best situation for now. We have full intention of bringing back Post 81.”

Alec Allred headshot

Former Ramseur man runs summer baseball circuit for college-age players

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Alec Allred oversees the Old North State League.

 

RAMSEUR –  Alec Allred is making a career out of baseball and it’s not on the field.

He’s the president of the Old North State League, a summer college circuit that wrapped up what he called a successful season earlier this summer.

“This is my full-time job now, trying to coordinate everything,” Allred said. “It’s a lot that goes into it, but it’s a ton of fun.”

Allred, 27, is from Ramseur and a 2014 graduate of Faith Christian. His family has largely overseen Eastern Randolph Post 81’s program on the American Legion level in recent years.

So finding a role in baseball seemed like a natural pursuit, Allred said. After high school, he had a redshirt year at North Carolina A&T followed by a season at Rockingham Community College and then a couple of seasons with Division III Peace College. Then came time in some independent leagues.

“I’m done playing,” he said. “I held on as long as I could.”

He saw other opportunities, particularly when it came to filling a niche for college-aged players in a wooden bat league. The ONSL began with eight teams and 125 players in 2019, using two fields. One of those was Craven Stadium in Ramseur.

Then during the 2020 pandemic-ravaged season, the ONSL fielded eight teams with bigger rosters and spread out.

“Those other leagues shut down and we were getting guys who had a higher calibre (of experience),” Allred said.

The Ramseur site is no longer used in the ONSL, but the 2022 version of the league had 13 teams with about 400 players. Last Monday, another team was added with a club in Clayton.

Allred, who now lives in Whispering Pines and conducts baseball lessons in the offseason, said he could envision the league growing to 18 teams.

It takes about $40,000 annually to run each team. Players are required to pay to play, but that might tend to create a commitment to stick without throughout the two-month season. Host families help with out-of-area players.

“We’re climbing and slowly getting better players,” Allred said. “My goal is to make it free for players. … You’re always trying to be better and get the league to new heights,”

The venues used by the league are vastly different from city to city. The High Point Hushpuppies play at Truist Point, which is the permanent home of the Atlantic League’s High Point Rockers. High school fields are used in Sanford and Shallotte, while facilities are well past their primes in places such as Reidsville and Swepsonville.

“There’s definitely a big variety of stadiums,” Allred said. “You have some old mill-league fields.”

Rosters generally hold about 30-some players.

Most of the ONSL players come from Division II, Division III or junior colleges – or are about to join teams on those levels. Allred said he has embraced an underdog mentality.

“I do get a little partial to the smaller-school guys,” he said.

Largely, players compete for teams that are local to where they live. About 25 percent of players come from out of the area, Allred said.

The Sandhills Bogeys, who are based in Pinehurst, won the 2022 championship, beating the Hendersonville Honeycrisps in the final.

ER_Evans

Progress defines Post 81’s bounce back

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Eastern Randolph Post 81 catcher Parker Evans tags out Stanly County’s Chance Hunt during an Area 3 playoff game. (PJ Ward-Brown/Randolph Record)

Eastern Randolph rediscovers winning ways in breakthrough season

RAMSEUR – Aside from the awkward ending, Eastern Randolph Post 81 put together a season that could set the foundation for the American Legion baseball program.

That would make this year’s efforts well worth it for a team that had endured some tough times in recent seasons.

“Our main goal was we wanted to bring life back to 81 baseball,” said first-year head coach Nate Cockman.

Consider that accomplished.

“It’s a different energy, for sure,” said third baseman Carson Rickman, who was also on the 2021 team. “I didn’t have great expectations because of last year.”

Eastern Randolph won two playoff series before forfeiting the Area 3 best-of-5 semifinals, which were slated to begin Saturday. Cockman cited lack of player availability for that decision.

Post 81 held an 18-9 record in games played, though two of those were overturned based on a player eligibility issue to give it a 16-11 mark (prior to the forfeited semifinal series).

Still, the team advanced to the Area 3 semifinals for the first time since 2015.

Post 81 lost three players based on eligibility ruling following the regular season. That contributed to the low roster number.

“We wanted to set small goals,” Cockman said. “We wanted to have a winning record. We wanted to win playoff series. We made those milestones.”

There were just a few returning players for Post 81 this season.

Creating a winning attitude took some time.

“When we showed up from Day 1, we had some talent,” shortstop Nate Gardner said. “It has been a great summer.”

Gardner, who plays for Faith Christian, had been on the Post 81 junior team, so he was pleased to be part of the progress.

“We opened people’s eyes,” he said.

Indeed, even with a lineup that constantly changed, Post 81 found ways to win games. Eastern Randolph tied for the Area 3 North Division title and would have been the top seed out of the division for the playoffs if not for a forfeited league game that knocked it down one spot.

Luke Thomas, a recent Providence Grove graduate heading to UNC Greensboro on baseball scholarship, made a huge impact in his only Post 81 season. He was the ace on the mound and played as the center fielder at other times. He occupied the lead-off spot in the batting order.

Brody Gardner, who played in high school for Eastern Randolph, also was a key player. But his availability was limited because of a role for the Lexington Flying Pigs of the Old North State League. He’ll join Rickman on the Greensboro College team.

“We need him here,” Cockman said of the impact Brody Gardner made for Post 81.

Catcher Parker Evans and infielder Aidan Allred also gave Eastern Randolph experience in the Post 81 system.

A victory in early June against Randolph County Post 45 sparked Post 81, which had a losing record at the time.

“That really kicked us off,” Nate Gardner said. “We saw that if we can get our act together, we’ll win games.”

In several games, late rallies carried the team to victories. That tended to be a theme, Cockman said.

In the best-of-3 quarterfinals vs. Stanly County, all games were played at Craven Stadium in Ramseur after Game 2 was postponed for a day and then Stanly County’s field deemed unplayable.

In Game 1 on July 12, Post 81 rallied from a 6-0 deficit to tie the game only to fall 7-6 when visiting Stanly County scored a run in the top of the seventh. Evans drove in two runs and Thomas notched two hits.

Post 81 needed to win twice last Thursday, doing so by 13-3 and 13-4 scores. In Game 2, Thomas struck out 10 in five innings. Samuel Asbill was the winning pitcher in Game 3. Chance Terry, who drove in six runs, and Rickman each had five hits in the two games combined. Thomas was 4-for-8 at the plate.