Gaston College makes official return to baseball at Caldwell Community College & Technical Institute

After a strong fall restart, Gaston College's baseball program makes it official with its start of the 2022 baseball season on Wednesday.

The Rhinos, who are returning to action for the first time in 50 years, visit nationally-ranked Caldwell Community College & Technical Institute on Wednesday at 3 p.m. at historic Walker Stadium in Lenoir.

The venue is named for Lenoir natives and brothers Rube and Verlon Walker; Rube was a former Chicago Cubs and Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers catcher and former Washington Senators, New York Mets and Atlanta Braves coach and Verlon was a longtime Cubs coach.

As with Wednesday's game, when new Gaston College head coach Shohn Doty's team plays the school's first official games since May 13, 1972, they'll come against a daunting schedule.

"The schedule speaks for itself in terms of degree of difficulty," Doty said. "We jump straight into the fire with a very good Caldwell team that's ranked in the top 10 in D3."

The Cobras are ranked No. 9 in the preseason National Junior College Athletic Association Division III poll - and is one of six opponents on the Rhinos' schedule getting preseason attention.

Gaston College's NJCAA Region 10 Division II league rivals Patrick & Henry (No. 10), Catawba Valley Community College (No. 13), Southeastern Community College (No. 19) and Brunswick Community College (votes) and NJCAA Region 10 Division I non-conference opponent Florence-Darlington Tech (No. 18) also drew attention in their respective preseason polls.

"We're scheduling this way to give ourselves a good gauge of where we are and where we need to go," said Doty, whose fall schedule came against NCAA Division II and NJCAA opponents. "I think the schedule we played in the fall has prepared us for this.
"So the schedule is challenging. But if we play well, we can meet our goal as a program, which is to be ranked in the top 20 every year. The best way to do that is to play good people and win games along the way."

On the field, Doty says he will use several pitchers - potentially among them NCAA Division I University of South Carolina signee Zach Zedalis - as he tries to establish his starting rotation and bullpen in addition to trying to determine his every day lineup.

"I think the first week will be very challenging for our pitchers," Doty said. "None of our guys have the pitch count that I'm comfortable with yet. So this first game will be a staff day. We'll throw four or five guys and hope they respond since, early on, we're going to try to establish our bullpen depth and establish our rotation."

In the every day lineup, NCAA Division I Campbell signee Chandler Riley is slated to start at third base, with Miller St. John at shortstop, Peyton Idol at second base, Ahmir Cournier at first base, Konni Durschlag in left field, Wade Kelly in center field and either Austin Raynor or Trenton Snyder in right field and Pierson Gunnell and Patrick Hogan will share the load behind the plate in the early going.

"We're trying use what we had the last half of the fall since I liked that combination of guys," Doty said.