With eyes always on the prize of winning, the Medford Mustangs have built up a strong roster that already believes it can go far in the American Legion AAA baseball season.

Some of the most definable characteristics of the group are versatile play and seasoned play with only seven of the 18-player roster slated to play high school baseball next spring.

With last year ending at the state tournament, first-year Mustangs head coach John King sees that as reasons for excitement after taking over the head coaching reins after spending four years as an assistant to Nate Mayben, who has stepped into a general manager role.

After watching how Mayben has cultivated the program, King has hopes to continue to instill those tenets with nine newcomers.

“I’ve watched what Nate’s done and I just want to keep it going,” said King. “I just want to keep the success going, the excitement of being a Mustang and expecting when you go out on the field that you’re gonna play hard and that you’re gonna win.”

Davis Carr of Bob Jones University will make up the oldest of the new Mustangs while local first-timers are Crater’s Jimmy Morgan and North Medford’s Kellen Willer and South Medford’s Jake Lewis.

A Cascade Christian trio of Jack Knips, Cole Stofflet and Grady Sickler along with Ashland’s Freeman Rountree and Jackson Rosenthal are also rookies to the team.

And looking at the roster, it is one of the older ones in recent memory with Sickler being an incoming sophomore and Lewis being an incoming junior.

With a small injection of youth and half the roster being new, King pointed to returners like Triston Wallace and Eli Havey as key examples for what is expected.

“Those are two guys that were very, very big for us last year,” he said about Wallace and Havey. “You bring those guys back and someone like Grady, they get to see what it takes to be out here every day and how you carry yourself on the field.”

After tryouts last week, the Mustangs’ talent will be closer than all the player’s ages on the roster.

A sense of healthy competition can be seen through the lineups with 13 players capable of pitching and plenty of talent all around the field.

And that could be seen in the Mustangs’ 11-1, mercy-rule win over Klamath Falls in seven innings Tuesday night at Lithia & Driveway Fields.

Medford (1-0) cycled through Evan Rhoden, Dominic Daffron and Sickler on the mound in the season opener, giving up a combined total of six hits.

With eight games over the next six days, including a California trip from Saturday-Monday, King expects to be switching players around different positions before the Mustangs get into the heart of league play.

“There’s a lot of competition out there for playing time,” King said about the versatility. “We’ve got a lot of guys that can play the infield and play the outfield. We’ve got two catchers and then you got greedy if you know we can put (Sickler) behind the plate after he caught all year (at Cascade Christian).”

“We’ve got three first basemen,” he added. “We’ve got multiple guys that can play in the middle of the diamond and multiple guys that can play all over. We have a lot of versatility and it’s nice because all these guys want to play.”

With Rhoden pitching through the first four innings Tuesday, he understands how important it is for everyone to get a fair chance and has already seen the team benefit from the healthy competition.

“All the guys pretty much know their role from the get-go and we will respect you wherever we are,” he said. “Honestly, everyone has a shot at whatever their goals are, but I just feel like it’s kind of a testament to our team and how we work.”

With the utility skills around the roster, King also sees opportunities to plug any holes that he saw last year.

“What hurt us last year was that we really struggled at shortstop,” the Mustangs coach said. “We’re trying to put somebody out there and let him get his reps and then when he goes to the mound, we’ll put someone else out there so he can get some reps.”

“We’re gonna mix a lot of people,” he added. “We’re going to try to get everyone an opportunity to play and the cream of the crop will rise and that’s who will end up playing.”

Even if there will be sorting out positions over the next week, the victory over the Falcons (0-1) might have provided answers when it comes to batting.

King, an assistant coach at North Medford, had little time to see how his players at Ashland, Crater and Cascade Christian other than South Medford perform in person during the spring season, and was happy to see how the Mustangs rattled off 13 hits on the Falcons after only seeing them in batting practice.

Rountree was one who wasted little time, hitting a leadoff triple to start the game and added another in the bottom of the third inning — going 4-for-5 from the plate with three runs and two RBIs.

Tristan Mallari also went 3-for-4 with a triple, adding two runs and an RBI, while Rosenthal and Willer had a double each.

“We have only had a week of practice,” Rountree said about the strong batting start. “We didn’t really know what our team was gonna look like. But it was a great relief to just come out here and hit the ball.”

And with Game 1 of a long season under the belt, depth will be key to keeping the lofty goal of winning state and going deep into the postseason alive.

“We’ve got a lot of stuff moving around and I think that’s what they wanted this summer,” said Rountree. “A lot of position players that can pitch. Keep our arms healthy. Keep our workload light.”

“I love being part of this program because it’s got a winning culture and everyone out here is competing for a spot,” he added. “And I think that breeds champions. I think that is a key factor to becoming a great baseball player and it’s a great thing that we’re all out here.”

Klamath Falls 001 000 0 — 1 6 1

Medford 204 041 x — 11 13 3

Carpenter, Hamilton (4), Safford (5) and Taccihini, Pinley (5); Rhoden, Daffron (5), Sickler (7) and Havey, Morgan (5). W — Rhoden (1-0). L — Carpenter. 2B — KF: Pinley; M: Willer, Rosenthal. 3B — M: Rountree 2, Mallari 1.