Coming off the great success of making it to the regional semi-finals this past year, Saint Jo baseball will have some representation in the Texas 6-Man Coaches Association Baseball Advisory Board.
Athletic director/football and baseball coach Derek Schlieve has been appointed to the board after letting the coach from Abbott know that he was interested.
“I said coach I know you are looking for someone to be on the advisory committee for baseball,” Schlieve said. “I told him I would be more than willing to help with that.”
With not many athletic directors at the 1A level also serving as baseball coaches, Schlieve hopes he can help grow 1A baseball not just for the sake of Saint Jo, but for the whole state. One issue is the necessity for split districts.
“Some of the issues have been how you handle district play,” Schlieve said. “In one district you might have eight 2A schools and one 1A. On the flip side of that, how do you do it if you might have six 1A schools and one 2A.”
With the number of 1A schools with baseball programs still on the smaller side around the state, split districts are a necessity for teams that do not want to travel two hours to play a regular season game when they have a close 2A school.
Unfortunately, this means these 1A schools are then forced to play most of their schedule against 2A competition. Therefore, regular season records and trying to evaluate teams has been tricky heading into playoffs and trying to rank teams in a poll.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.