LEWISTOWN — There will be five new managers in the Mifflin County Babe Ruth League for the 2022 season. One of those managers will be at the helm of an entirely new team.

Mifflin County added a 10th franchise for the up coming season, Beaver Springs East.

The 68th season for the league opens on Wednesday. Defending champion Lewistown hosts Beaver Springs West (which is the orginial Beaver Springs team) at 6 p.m. at Rec Park.

Other games on opening night include Strodes Mills going to Belltown; Belleville visiting McVeytown and Reedsville playing at the newcomers Beaver Springs East. All those games are set to begin at 6 p.m.

Milroy will host Bunrham in a 7 p.m. game under the lights at Armagh Memorial Field. Each team is scheduled to play 18 games.

Belleville and McVeytown are the only two franchises that have fielded teams each year since the league was founded in1955.

Mifflin County holds the state Babe Ruth record of consecutive years as a charted league at 68.

The new managers are Josh Snook at Lewistown; JL McCloskey at Beaver Springs West; Eric Ettinger at Burnham; Matt Weaver for Reedsville and Skip Shellenbeger at Beaver Springs East.

Gone from last year are Brad Wagner at Lewistown (38-46); Mike Souders, Burnham (57-26); Mike Wolfley, Beaver Springs (28-9) and Jeff Kanagy, Reedsville (14-9).

Two managers are returning for their third year are Jason Hunter of Strodes Mills (13-24) and John Pannizzo for Belltown (12-24).

Both Phil Guss of Milroy and Denny Yetter of McVeytown return for their second year. Both mangers have 4-20 records.

But, there is still one constant in the league, Belleville’s Bill Corbin.

Corbin has a 635-366 record in Belleville and has an overall mark (including Mifflin County All-Star games) of 744-400. He has the most wins of any Babe Ruth manager in Pennsylvania. Corbin is about to begin his 40th season.

The Belleville manager is nearing some milestones. He has managed in 990 games in the regular season and needs 10 more games to reach 1,000. Six more wins will give him 750 overall and he needs to coach in three more games to give him 1,300 games managed or coached for a career. The league and state record is held by Reedsville’s Scott Reigle 1,369.

This will not be the first time there has been movement among teams in the league. Mifflintown was one of the orginial teams in 1955 and only lasted three years. It was replaced by Milroy.

Bunrham came into the league in 1960 as one team, but during the 1960s it had two teams, Burnham Red and Burnham Green. In 1970, Burnham went back to one team. Lewistown had two teams, East and West. But, the East only survived five years and folded after the 2003 season.

Yeagertown joined the legue in 1971 and had fielded a team for 47 consecutive years until 2017.

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Armagh Memorial Field will host the Mid-Atlantic Regional for 14-year-olds in July.

This will mark the 30th time that a Mifflin County team will be in a Mid-Atlantric Regional, as the host automatically qualifies. West End of Williamsport is second with 20 appearances.

This will mark the fourth time that Armagh will host a regional. The other years were 2003, 2004 and 2018. Mifflin County won regional titles in 2004 and 2018 (both 15-year-olds).

Last summer as 13-year-olds, Mifflin County lost in the regional finals to Atlantic Shore (Atlantic City, NJ metro area). Atlantic Shore went on to win the Babe Ruth World Series championship.

The winner of the regional tournament will advance to the 14-year-old Babe Ruth World Series in Williston, North Dakota.

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Two new signs will go up at the Armagh field later this summer. The two signs will honor two more World Series teams.

In 1996, the Mifflin County Senior Babe Ruth League sent a team to the 16-year-old World Series in Gulfport, Mississippi. Members of that team were BJ Clark, Aaron Drake, Eric Ettinger, Jason Fetters, Aaron Fultz, Bill Gilson, Dustin Harmon, Tim Hicks, Ryan Knepp, Kenny Powell, Clare Price, Derek Secrest, Matt Stein, Barry Swartz and Rich Wagner.

The manager of the team was Mike Fultz and his coahces were John Durst and Bill Corbin.

The other team to be honored will be the most recent Babe Ruth World Series team — the 2021 15-year-olds that finished as the national runner-up.

Members of the team were Hunter Bailey, Trace Brought, Landen Eichhorn, Tucker Gill, Ryan Hine, Ryan Kanagy, Parker Kearns, Garrett Leitzel, Chris Moon, JohnPaul Pannizzo, Aidan Reed, Deakon Schaeffer, Trevor Sheaffer, Xavier Smith and Douglas Weaver. The manager of the team was Bill Corbin and the coaches were Kalen Gearhart, Jeff Kanagy, Bob Mowery and Jake Sheaffer.

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For the second straight year, a photo of Mifflin County’s Cole Schlegel (Strodes Mills) has appeared in a Babe Ruth national publication.

Last year, a photo of Schlegel pitching in the 2016 13-year-old World Series was in the Babe Ruth local league guide as an example of a player wearing both the World Series and Babe Ruth logos.

This year the same photo is on the back inside cover of the 2022 rule book. Schlegel’s photo appears with the listings of the 2022 World Series dates and locations.

Schlegel was a three time All-Star from 2016-2018 and was on the 2016 Mifflin County 13-year-old Babe Ruth World Series championship team and was also on the national finalist team in 2018 as a 15-year-old.

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Sentinel correspondent Ray Wilde covers the Mifflin County Babe Ruth League.