Baseball tournament prepares to open in new venue

When the state high school baseball tournament begins on Saturday it will mark the first time since 1994 the entire tournament has been played at one site. Principal Park in Des Moines will host the tournament for the first time after Marshalltown and Carroll served as co-hosts the past ten years. Granville Spalding is on the 1A field for the fifth time in the last six years and coach Bill Wuebker says they liked Carroll Stadium. The City had been host of the 1A and 3A tournaments. Wuebker says he has mixed emotions about the change,as he says Carroll was nice, convenient and had a small town atmosphere. He says he doesn’t know how many people will want to fight the Des Moines traffic.The dimensions of PrInicipal Park are much larger than what most high school teams are used to but Wubker says they are really not much different than the stadium in Carroll. Gene Schultz is directing class 1A top ranked Lansing Kee into the state tournament for the 16th time and says he also has mixed emotions. He says there were a lot of good things in Carroll.One concern he has is the schedule. The 1A opening round is Saturday but the semifinal round won’t be played until next Thursday. He says they were worried about going into the tournament with a seven day break, and they almost got beat.Schultz feels the larger playing field will be a factor and says outfielders will have a lot more ground to cover. He says the outfielders might have to ride a horse to catch up to the ball. Schultz says they’ve played in a few large ballparks, and hopefully they’ll have good outfield play. The tournament will run through next Saturday.