Scott Reigle would have been pleased.
Reigle, the longtime Reedsville Babe Ruth coach, died in December of last year.
He loved the Mifflin County Babe Ruth League.
But, even more than that, he loved to coach the Reedsville Babe Ruth team.
Scott was a coach or manager of the team from 1972 to 2018. He was an assistant coach from 1972 to 1997 and then he took over the team when his father, Bob, passed away. He played for Reedsville from 1968-1970. He did keep score for Reedsville for one game in 2019, before he had to leave because of health problems.
If you add up all those years (not counting 2019) it comes to 52 years.
He could have retired after the 2016 season after the Mifflin County 13-year-old All-Star team won the national title.
At that point in time, Reedsville was going downhill. For years, Reedsville was one of the top franchises in the league. It was one of the first four teams in the league in 1955. It didn’t field a team for a few years in the early 1960’s, but it has been a consistent winner for decades.
Since 1967 (as far as the Mifflin County records go back), Reedsville has a record of 829-464, and that is for 55 years worth of games.
But, from 2016 to 2018, Reedsville was 12-65. A lot of men would have stepped down, but
Scott didn’t.
Josh Edwards took over the team in 2019 and Reedsville went 14-10. The next year, it hit rock bottom as it couldn’t even field a team and had to combine with Milroy in 2020.
Reedsville finally got back on its feet in 2021 as Jeff Kanagy took over the team as manager. He had it for one year and gave it to Matt Weaver. This year, the manager is Shawn Wagner.
Last year, Reedsville jumped out to an 8-0 record, but an older and more experienced team, Belltown, (especially on the mound), caught Reedsville and then passed them for the 2022 title.
This year, Reedsville had the more mature team. It only lost two starters from the year before.
How good was Reedsville? It had six starters back that were Mifflin County Babe Ruth All-Stars.
This year’s team was comprised of Caleb Bubb, Camden Kauffman, Jordan Kern, Zander Lawson, Austin McKnight, Jamieson Parkes, Nathan Parkes, Wyatt Parkes, Gavin Powell, Carter Smith, Madden Weaver, Easton Zook and Jude Zook.
For Reedsville to get back on top, it took a lot of losses, tears, disappointments and years of frustrations, but through it all, the Reedsville baseball community didn’t give up and now they are back on top of the Mifflin County Babe Ruth League.
Today’s breaking news and more in your inbox