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Show C t : , , Z. 4 ' r ' , dr . ' I I 1 - f ' ' I Although just juniors at Viewmont Doug Lee (left) Danny Hansen and Steve Caputo are returning starters on the baseball field. All three though have new positions. Viewmont isn't buying the old story that championships are won by experience. They're placing their money on talent. And the Vikes are chuck-full of young talent. good arm. Jaren Pack will also see action at this spot. Senior Jeff Porter is in center cen-ter field where the Vikes can make best use of his excellent speed with Lee being moved from first, where he started last year, to rightfield. COACH JOHN Edwards knows he has a good offensive ball club and is still optimistic about his pitchers. If one or two of them come around for the Viewmont side then they'll battle for the league title that they won last year. With only five seniors on the club the Viewmont team may just be a year away but then again don't tell this club that, because they feel they can battle bat-tle with any team this year. Dave Wigham Clipper Sports BOUNTIFUL When speaking of baseball powers in the state of Utah the school Viewmont almost always pops up in the conversation. The Vikings have a rich tradition in this spring sport. DOWN THROUGH the ages the Vikes have sent the likes of Dave Downs, Jim Tillitson, Tyler Steinbeck, Rodger Thomas. Tho-mas. Kelly Downs, Kevin Jensen, Jen-sen, Dave Nelson, Kim Nelson, Nel-son, Russ Cannon, and many others onto the college scene. And those guys are just the pitchers. - , INDEED THE Vikings have been blessed with some of the top prep throwers that this stale, or many others, have seen. It could always be said that the Vikings had a stopper on their staff, a dominate pitcher that you knew would win the game when it came turn for him in the rotation. , Even last year the Vikes had Curtis Holt and Kyle Morrell in their system which gave them a great one-two punch on the mound. This year though the Vikings are still looking for their so called stopper on the mound. THEY HAVE plenty of nominations for the award. The top four hurlers right now for Viewmont are all juniors I 1 which might indicate they are all a year away from being in the same class as some of the other former Viking hurlers. Kevin Smith is probably the number one pitcher right now. A big strong armed righthander righthand-er Kevin could very well turn into an outstanding player. Right behind him is another junior in Kurt Mathews. That name keeps coming up in Viking Vik-ing sports. Kurt is also a good fastball pitcher who could come into his own before his playing days are over. JAREN PACK and Cam Roberts are also slated to see a lot of action this season, and they already have. Both of them are very capable of winning win-ning games. Although on paper, this Viewmont side is young in school years, they have four juniors who start, they are an experienced group. Danny Hansen is penciled in for first base with Steve Caputo at second and Doug Lee in the outfield. Mathews is also going to play outfield when not throwing. ALL THESE juniors either started or played a lot as sophomores soph-omores a year ago so they have varsity experience under their belts. Lee has turned into a great offensive weapon as he leads the Vikes in pre-season with a .667 average. Doug is also on a school record re-cord pace, he has a game hitting streak, spaning back to last season. He collected a couple of hits last Tuesday against East to keep the record in tact. He has established the record and every game he hits in just adds to his record. CAPUTO IS another fine athlete who excells in more than baseball. But right now the second baseman, switched from third where he started a year ago, is concentrating on this sport. Steve is also hitting right around .500 for the year. Senior Troy Larsen is the , catcher for the Vikes but juniors Layne Rozema and Mike Burnett are pushing extra ex-tra hard for playing time. DANNY HANSEN, who was the D.H. a year ago, has been moved to first. A good lefth-anded lefth-anded hitter, Danny is also a fine fielder. Caputo is at second with senior Ted Jones at shortstop. Ted is a very steady player at short. Two seniors. Tad Lindsey and Rodger Davis, are still fighting for third base position and both are making excellent cases for themselves. MATHEWS is slated to play left but when he pitches that honor falls on the shoulders of anotherjunior in Doug Scovil. Doug has great speed and a |