Central/West reduces schedule
- Updated: March 31, 2026
The Manchester Central/West baseball program will remove six games from its schedule and play 12 regular season games this spring, according to head coach Anthony Malik.
A 12-game schedule is the minimum the NHIAA allows for a team to be eligible for the Division I tournament.
“We have dropped to 12 games, which is the minimum required by the NHIAA to have an official season,” Malik said. “The reason for it is the numbers are a big concern. We’re averaging 11 or 12 kids at practice on a roster of 13.
“Within that we have an inexperienced group. We don’t have a lot of guys who have played a lot of organized baseball. We’re really lacking depth in pitching. Playing 18 games would leave us in a tough spot in terms of putting kids on the mound to safely pitch. Playing 18 games is just not feasible for us. At the same time I have a group of kids who want to play high school baseball.”
Central/West does not have a junior varsity team, and the program graduated six seniors from a team that won one Division I game last season. Malik said two players on this year’s team are from West.
“I like the kids I coach,” he said. “We have a good group of kids who come to the park wanting to play baseball. We have a lot of good things going on in this program, it just may not show up on the scoreboard.”
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