Rebels Add Another Arm

The Ryley Rebels announced the signing of LHP Cody Hovdestad the roster for 2010, last week during the first Rebels off-season workout. Hovdestad has previously pitched for the University of Nebraska-Kearney Lopers and the Swift Current Indians of the Western Major Baseball League before taking some time off from baseball.

“We are really excited to have Cody join the team” said Rebels Manager Kevin Reinholt. “He brings a lot of high level playing experience and professionalism to the team for the upcoming season”. The Rebels do however plan to bring Hovdestad slowly along during the off-season. “We’ll monitor him over the off-season as he builds up his arm strength” stated Reinholt “we don’t want him to do too much too soon.” This was seen as a Hovdestad pitched only a light bull pen session last week, throwing only a couple different breaking pitches, which still maintained there excellent break, even with Cody’s time off.

Hovdestad will join the hard throwing trio of RHP Dylan Solberg, RHP Curt Stensrud and RHP Joel Graumann in a pitching rotation that has vastly improved since 2009. “I think our pitching rotation is one of the best in the league” said Rebels General Manager Corey Epp. “Now our defense needs to step up and ensure that we don’t waste quality starts from our starters by kicking the ball around in the field”.

But that wasn’t the only good news to be had for the Rebels last week. It was also confirmed that RHP Ronnie Oslund has confirmed he will be back to join the Rebels in 2010. During his only start in 2009 for the Rebels, Oslund was able to pick up the victory against the Tofield Lakers at Bardo Day in June.

Joining Oslund (1-0) in the Rebels bullpen will be RHP Shane Metrunec (1-0), RHP Corey Epp (2-3), LHP Darcy Granberg (0-2), RHP Kris Kushnerick (1-1) and RHP Josh Lyons (0-1) in 2010. Oslund will bring experience and poise to a young group of Rebels who at times, allowed the emotions to get the best of them.

If the Rebels hope to be successful in 2010 (both in the PBL and tournaments) they will require enough arms to throw the innings. If 2010 is anything like 2009, the Rebels can expect to play 33 – 39 games which translates into 231 – 273 innings.

The Rebels also signed young RHP Paul Schole to a minor league deal to help fill out the tournament pitching roster. Schole was 2-2 with a 5.88 era with the Camrose Axemen in the NCABL during the 2009 campaign and will continue to pitch for the Axemen in 2010.

“I think we have come across a pretty unique situation with the Rebels and Axemen” said current Camrose Axemen and Ryley Rebel Kris Kushnerick. “We have a large pool of young players, all of whom want to play as much baseball as possible, for both teams to draw players from for league and tournament play. We have also been finding more young players who want to continue their baseball playing past minor ball and making that first connection now, will hopefully help out both teams in the near future when we are getting too old”.

2009 also saw the Rebels benefit from current Bardo Athletics IF Ryan Stauffer and current Armena Royal IF/P Jason Buzzell’s enthusiasm for baseball, as both attended tournaments with the Rebels.

With the 2010 Powerline Baseball League season a short three and a half months away, the Rebels have appeared to have made all the right moves in the off-season to not only push for the playoffs, but to hopefully take a good run at the prestigious PBL Cup.