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Courtesy Photos/Generals CHAMPS: After Virginia Generals won the 9U and 10U Old Dominion Baseball League titles in 2009, many of the organization's players are returning for the 2010 season.
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VA Generals enter 2010 baseball season with high expectations
Local
By Dan Roem
Source: Gainesville Times
THURSDAY, MARCH 25 2010
If there's one thing Jay Shepard is looking for this season for his Virginia Generals travel youth baseball teams, it's better competition. After all, once one of your teams has taken, even for a moment, a No. 1 national ranking and others come away with league and district titles, it seems only fair. "We're putting ourselves into bigger ponds," said Shepard, who also serves as the chairman of the Old Dominion Baseball League, which now features 99 teams from Delaware to Hampton Roads. At this point, the 12U team can expect to face 13U opponents during the season just to find out what stuff they've got. Shepard argues that the 9U squad is "the best Generals team we've ever had," which says a lot given that the Generals program as a whole has gone toe-to-toe with the formidable Gainesville Cannons during the last two seasons after previously coming up consistently short against their rival. Most recruits from the Virginia Generals live in Prince William County and are expected to attend Battlefield and Brentsville District high schools along with the soon-to-come Patriot HS. That means when the coaching staffs for those schools, particularly Battlefield's Matt Caudle and Brentsville's Brian Knight, are searching for future prospects, they have local travel teams to monitor for talent. Battlefield pitching coach Dave Carroll, for example, has been an active trainer with travel teams in the area, including the Generals and Cannons. For a while last season, the 10U team earned status as the No. 3 team nationally following a 9-0 winning streak that Shepard said "teetered out" by the end of the season. "It was almost like they couldn't get the engine started again," said Shepard. That should not be much of an issue this year given the level of talent that's been brought in to coach some of the team, such as former pro players Reggie Terry and Darren Campbell. On the 12U team, which Shepard helps coach and calls an “all star team of an all-star team,” his son Trey and team ace Nick Drury are hitting the mid-60s on the speed gun with potential for them to be in the 70s by mid-season. The 10U and 11U teams participated in their first tournaments of the spring season this past weekend, with the younger boys heading down to Petersburg and older ones competing in Woodbridge. So far during the pre-season, Shepard said 10U pitcher Hunter Bowman is among the standouts on a team with championship aspirations. "He's flat-out throwing gas," said Shepard, describing Bowman as a "big kid" who can "almost be as big as any 12 y
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