HARRISBURG — The Woodies are back.

After five long seasons, the Harrisburg Woodies have returned to South Dakota amateur baseball, but this time, won’t be competing at the Class B level.

Before the 2019 season, the Woodies were told they needed to make the jump from Class B to Class A due to the town’s growing population. According to the South Dakota Amateur Baseball by-laws, as soon as a town surpasses a 5,000 population census, that team will need to move up.

After petitioning at the spring meeting, the Woodies played their final season in Class B in 2019, and effectively, a temporary end to the organization.

“Our city was growing, but our team numbers were still, I mean, we were drawing from fairly modest high school classes,” said Woodies manager and player Dalton Allen. “We only probably had 12 to 15 guys on our roster, and it was primarily guys 25 to 35 years old, telling those guys ‘Hey, you got to play Class B your whole life. You're on the back end of your career, and now you got to go play some of the better teams in the state and be in Class A.’ Immediately four or five are guys like, well, I'm not going to play if you guys have to go Class A.”

A photo of the Woodies before a game this season. (Courtesy photo / Dalton Allen)

The Woodies folded after the 2019 season and remained out of commission, until word began to spread about an amateur baseball revival in Harrisburg last year.

“There were some talks in motion, not during the season, but just some, some things were falling into place,” said Allen. “One of them is Tyler Mitzel. He was the best man at my wedding. He had just gotten released from the Marlins. He was a pitcher in their organization, and he was kind of saying, ‘Hey, I'm ready. I want to pitch next summer and play this amateur thing everybody's talking about.’ ”

Between Allen, a former Dell Rapids Mudcat, Mitzel, and former Renner Monarch Josh Baumgart, the three wanted to all play on one team. That’s when they decided to try to bring the Woodies back.

“It was pretty quick,” Allen said of the decision to bring the Woodies back. “Some meetings with Kris Regas and some of the guys in Harrisburg baseball, and try to put some names together on who we think might be interested. Visited with the Dells guys a little bit on what their thoughts were. And so it was like three weeks, four weeks after the season we kind of decided we got to make the decision sooner than later, so nobody's wondering what the plan is.”

With a decision made the Woodies put together a juggernaut of a team filled with former pro players and many former and current college baseball players as well.

The most notable names include Allen, a former pitcher at Augustana, Mitzel, a former Augustana pitcher who spent four years with Miami Marlins farm system, Regas, a former Jacksonville (Fla.) lefty pitcher who went on to have a 13-year pro career, including stops with the Detroit Tigers and New York Mets, and Dalton Lehnen, another former Augie pitcher that spent three years with the New York Yankees organization. Other names include Baumgart, a former Morehead (Ky.) State pitcher, Aaron LaBrie, a former Garretson Blue Jay and Wichita State pitcher, and Dillon Janak who pitched at Central Arkansas.

To say the least, pitching won’t be an issue for the Woodies.

“You know, with the arm talent we have on the mound, we could pitch with anybody in the state, just kind of a wild card on how much we could hit,” Allen said. “We brand ourselves as a bunch of pitchers only who are a little bit athletic enough once in a while to hit too. You know, our whole lineup on a given night, you probably got four guys who are primarily pitchers being hitters. That's not to say they're not good hitters, but we knew we'd have a really good pitching staff, and it was just, can we score enough runs against good pitching.”

But so far, the Woodies have been a well-oiled machine on both sides of the plate. As a team, the Woodies are batting .339 on the year with 10 home runs in 10 games, while allowing just seven earned runs with a 0.80 ERA. In its first season back, Harrisburg (10-0, 3-0 Sioux Empire League play) is already the odds on favorite in Class A.

“It feels good, but at the same time, we feel like we've been here before,” Allen said. “You know, we were maybe not odds on favorites back with Harrisburg in the B days, but every year we were in that top three or four teams that could win at any year.”

Nick Ramstad bats during an amateur baseball game with Brian Stoebner (25) third base coaching. (Courtesy photo / Dalton Allen)

And it helps to have players that know what it’s like to win an amateur championship on the roster. In 2021 and ‘22, Allen, Regas, Lehnen, Kole Zimmerman and Mark Abrahamson powered the Dell Rapids Mudcats to back-to-back Class B championships before moving to the Woodies for the 2025 season. The Woodies also made the state semifinals in 2017 and ‘18 at the Class B level as well.

In total, there are six members on the team that were on the 2019 Woodies roster, including Allen, Abrahamson, Labrie, Nick Ramstead, Brian Stoebner, and Ryan Menssen.

But Allen says the biggest factor this season has been the young guns on the team that are getting their first experience of amateur baseball.

“Some of these young kids that maybe the names aren't as familiar, are truly what I think is going to separate our team come playoff time,” Allen said. “Having a bought in group of not only the guys who have been around and done it, but, you know, a handful of young kids running with us.”

Maddux Sherer, a former Harrisburg graduate now freshman at the University of South Carolina-Upstate, is batting .571 for the Woodies with two homers and 10 RBIs. Will Simmons, a junior at the University of North Carolina and former Harrisburg high school standout, struck out 19 batters in a seven-inning outing earlier this season. And Palmer Boyd, a current freshman at Northern State, is batting .500 in five games for the Woodies as well.

With loads of talent at all levels of baseball, the Woodies will be a team to watch out for in the postseason.

“It's really you got to come out and you got to win the games in front of you,” said Allen. “Amateur ball, especially come August, is kind of anyone's game, especially with the way these tournaments are formatted. So we got to stay kind of focused a little bit. Just take one game at a time, but we know we've got a good group.”