By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
The baseball dugout at West Union High School will again have a new leader this season as John Shelton takes control of the Dragons’ baseball program. Shelton inherits a squad that hasn’t seen much success in recent seasons and optimistically hope to turn things in the other direction.
When asked where the fix begins, one name quickly comes to coach Shelton’s thoughts- Thomas Barnhart. Barnhart is a highly touted transfer who last year was on the roster of the Manchester Greyhounds. “We have a lot of hope for Thomas,” says Shelton. “He can pitch well, 88 to 92 mph, and is a ranked catcher.”
The 2026 West Union roster includes four seniors- Nate Fooce, Matty Byron, Tegan Knox and Billy Flaugher. “Billy has never played baseball before,” adds Shelton, but has been a pleasant surprise for us in the preseason in left field.”
“We’re young past those four seniors, mostly sophomores but our roster totals 16 players. I feel like I have six kids who I can throw out there on the mound and I won’t be worried. All six of them can throw strikes but they have to get comfortable with Thomas behind the plate.”
“These boys are just not used to winning. I have a rec team that is used to winning and they will be freshmen next year ans we hope a winning attitude is her to meet them. If we throw strikes I think we can surprise some people because I think we are pretty solid defensively. We’ve made a few adjustments and moved some people to different positions. The subs that I have will get to play because they won’t get any better sitting on the bench all year. I think with this sophomore class and as hard as they work I think we can be at the top of the league in a couple of seasons.”
“I played baseball for Coach Dave Young at North Adams and he instilled in me the idea of hard work,” Shelton continued. “I’m a little bit of an old school coach but I have to be “new” school too because kids don’t take things like they used to. I think I have a mature group of kids and they’re beginning to understand. As I said, they work hard and have accepted the changes we’ve made. When they asked me to coach, I said that one year won’t do it. I want time to build a winning program. I may not last as long as Joe Kramer but we need to learn how to win.”
“Just because you are from Peebles, Manchester or North Adams doesn’t automatically make you a better player than someone from West Union. It’s all about how hard you want to work. I have good athletes here and good baseball players here but we haven’t quite learned how to be a team yet. Once we learn how to be a team, we will be all right. I thought maybe we could win a couple of games when I first started, but after watching them in the preseason, I think we might be better than that in a very tough league. If we keep working and keep our heads up, I think we might sneak up and bite a couple of teams.”
As of press time. Shelton will be assisted by Randy Jones and Mike Knox.
“I was told that the worst thing about coaching at the high school level was the parents but my parents have been great to this point,” says Coach Shelton. “We wouldn’t be where we are without the great parent support.”
As far as Shelton’s coaching credentials, this is his 30th year of being involved with baseball at some level. He has been an assistant coach at Manchester and then went to umpire school and started umpiring in the area. He has coached youth leagues and travel ball but in the back of his mind has always wanted to coach high school baseball.
“I just never had a job where I could get off work in time to be a practice and games,” Shelton explained. “Now I do and it just kind of worked out for me to come here to West Union. I get off work at three o’clock and come straight her to work on the field.”
“There’s no place I’d rather be. I’m a baseball fanatic.”
The Dragons saw their first action of the season on Monday night when they hosted the Northwest Mohawks in non-conference play and the next night were at home again, hosting Manchester in the Southern Hills Athletic Conference opener for both teams. )Those results were not available at press deadline.)
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