Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

CHOCOWINITY, N.C. — It was a welcome sight as the Beaufort County Junior American Legion baseball team began practice Monday evening.

The sun was out and there was no rain. It was a change of pace from what Post 15 had to deal with last week. Two games were rained out, with one moving to late June.

A game scheduled for Monday with Perquimans at Chocowinity Middle School wasn’t played because the high school team had taken part in the Class 1A state championship last weekend. That game was moved to June 27. A game with Lawrence last Friday was canceled, while a game with Wilson was moved to July 2.

This week, Post 15 was scheduled to play in Ahoskie (Wednesday) and Perquimans (June 9) before finally returning home on June 10 for the second home game of the season, also against Ahoskie.

“The Perquimans game we had to move since they were in the state championship, then the other game (last Friday), we were here, everything was done, and then we had that one big downpour,” Post 15 coach Bobby Boyd said.  “It just becomes a lot of baseball.

“Fourteen games in four weeks, that’s a lot. And we have a spell at the end of the season, at the very end of the season, we have six baseball games in seven days.”

Despite the schedule changes, the team remained upbeat and was ready to practice on Monday. The positive attitude is something Boyd is glad to see still remains.

“That’s why you carry 18 ballplayers, hoping that you’re going to have enough, because they’re going to come to that spell when you’re playing a ton of baseball in a short amount of time,” Boyd said. “That’s why you try to carry a lot of pitchers.

“And with this team, they just got some really decent experience at the Memorial Day Classic (in Goldsboro). Everybody played, everybody started, that’s what we promised them. Now we’re getting into conference play, and regular season champions get an automatic berth to the state tournament.

“So our first goal is to hopefully win the regular season, because we haven’t done that yet. The last two years have been runner-ups.”

Boyd said getting his players the game experience was one of the bright spots from before the rains came. Legion baseball can be a grind at times, with trying to get so many games in. While it gets tougher when games are rained out, it’s not impossible to do.

The fact the team loves to play baseball, is versatile with a lot of pitching, and can roll with the punches is what makes the squad so talented, despite its youth.

“I had a guy here (Monday) at 10 minutes after 5,” said Boyd, who held practice at 6:30. Just getting some extra hitting in. That’s inside of you, but it also starts with the coaching of what is expected. And I’m old school. I have to be at work on time and I’m trying to teach these boys about life. You need to be on time for baseball.

“The chemistry is the best we’ve ever had, the team chemistry and the bonding between them all.”