RAPID CITY - Rapid City South baseball is ready to begin its first season in 2008 with plenty of optimism and a little bit of uncertainty.

The team, consisting of players from St. Thomas More High School, joins the South Dakota High School Baseball Association's Region 4B West Division along with Hot Springs, Bennett County, Lead-Deadwood and Pine Ridge.

"This being our first year for Rapid City South baseball has been a little bit difficult," South head coach Jeff Pekny said. "We're really excited to play, but a lot of our older kids haven't played for three or four years and a lot of our younger kids are just coming right out of (the) Pony (League)."

Pekny has also had the added challenge of dealing with tough weather conditions this spring - the last thing he wanted to see for his young team.

"It's early and we're really trying to work on the fundamentals," Pekny said. "It's a work in progress. The weather has been brutal. We played a couple games in the snow against Central, we played a little bit in the rain and snow against (Rapid City West) and we've had games cancelled at the last minute. It's been rough, but it's been rough for all sports."

Pekny calls Hot Springs and Bennett County the probable favorites in Region 4B, but he is quick to qualify.

"We're a new team seeing all of these guys for the first time," Pekny said. "I think those two are probably the favorites in the region, but we haven't seen Lead-Deadwood or Pine Ridge yet, so we don't really know what they've got."

South is hoping to ride the arms of a couple of pitchers with Legion baseball experience. Junior Spencer Braun and senior Luke Ashland are considered Pekny's top two pitchers, with Dan Bickett, Nick Fees, Logan Jankord, Tyler Richardson, Taylor Klapperich, Paul Oddo and Dominic Bradford planning on filling out the rotation.

"We've got some experience with Spencer and Luke, but after that we're going to have to rely on some younger kids," Pekny said.

"We'll probably have a rough outing or two at the beginning of the year, but we're hoping that we'll have enough in the end to play well in our region."

Ashland is joined by two familiar names to football fans, Alex Hollibaugh and Corey Hartley, as the only seniors on the team. South has three juniors - Braun, Bickett and Colin Pugsley - five sophomores and 10 players that are either freshmen or younger.

Rob Bradford, Jim Sullivan, Jeff Woolever and Steve Arity are Pekny's assistant coaches.

Pekny calls Chamberlain, Winner and Platte his teams to beat in the state. There are 35 teams in the four regions of South Dakota Class B high school baseball and eight make it to the state tournament. The Class B state tournament will be May 26 in Platte.