ORIG 06/16/2015 Ryan Brennecke / The BulletinCentral Oregon high school players Colton Lovelace, from left, Elliot Willy, George Mendazona and Hayden Smith will be playing together this summer on the Elks 19U team.

George Mendazona means no disrespect with his words.

He means no slight when he says the team he is dressing down with this summer is better than his Ridgeview High squad. He emphasizes that it is not meant as an insult. But frankly, as three other players from three other Central Oregon high schools agree, this summer team is better than their spring squads.

It would be tough to argue against that assertion, considering Mendazona, Bend High’s Elliot Willy and Redmond High’s Hayden Smith are three of seven Intermountain Conference baseball all-league first-team players who are now lacing up their cleats and joining forces for the same summer club. Add in Mountain View’s Colton Lovelace and two other all-IMC second-team players, as well as a starter from Summit’s state semifinal team.

“You put together what I call a little all-star team here,” says Mendazona, the IMC player of the year this spring. “It’s fun to play with good guys and good players.”

This is the debut season of the Bend Elks 19U club baseball team, a collection of more than a dozen Central Oregon high school players looking to continue development as they strive toward a collegiate baseball career. Six local high schools are represented on the roster — Bend, Mountain View, Summit, Redmond, Ridgeview and Sisters — which is made up mostly of upperclassmen.

What used to be the Central Oregon Bucks — composed of collegiate and high school players that served as the Elks’ developmental squad — is now the Bend Elks 19U, an independent metal- and wood-bat team that offers Central Oregon high school players an opportunity to face heightened competition they perhaps would not see otherwise.

“I wanted to do something for the high school guys,” says Casey Powell, first-year general manager of the Elks, who play in the summer collegiate West Coast League. “The high school summer ball (season) is OK, but they’re not really playing great competition. … My thought with this 19U team was let’s get them playing some club teams from Seattle, Portland, those kinds of things, seeing some really good competition.

“I also wanted to get these kids out in front of some college coaches,” adds Powell, whose resume includes coaching stints at Linfield, Whitman College and Seattle University. “I kind of tried to get them into some tournaments and showcases that I used to recruit as a coach.”

The 19U team is an independent squad, and it plays its home games at Vince Genna Stadium, where admission is free. The team is slated to play a 39-game schedule against opponents ranging from high school club and American Legion teams to small-college summer teams and with both wood and metal bats.

Powell says he did not want to assemble collegiate-level rosters for both the Elks and the Bucks, which led to the disbanding of the Bucks. But mostly, he continues, he wanted a competitive summer baseball season for a region that has produced current major league players Jacoby Ellsbury and Darrell Ceciliani.

“Some of these guys that are maybe flying under the radar a little bit and that want to play college ball,” Powell says, “we can get them in front of some of these (college coaches).”

There were opportunities for out-of-region — and even out-of-state — players to be added to the Elks 19U squad. But, Powell emphasizes, “I’m not going to put an outside-of-the-area kid on this team (to take) away at-bats and innings from local kids.”

Those local players include Mendazona, who will be a senior at Ridgeview, and Bend High rising senior Elliot Willy, two players who have verbally committed to play baseball at Oregon State but can continue to catch the eyes of college coaches and recruiters or even professional scouts. That group of Central Oregon talent also includes Redmond High rising senior Hayden Smith and Mountain View rising senior Colton Lovelace, players who are still seeking attention from college coaches and recruiters but who understand that sharing the field with high-profile athletes like Mendazona and Willy is a good place to start.

“Scouts are coming to look at George all the time,” Smith says. “So they see me playing out there, going hard, maybe they call me.”

Having played against each other for most of their high school careers, if not longer, some of the top-tier Central Oregon baseball talents button down some Elks jerseys, slip on the new Elks hats and take the field against some of the best competition in the state and beyond.

“I think it’s kind of fun that we get to play with these guys who are probably the best players from each school,” says Mendazona. “It makes it a lot more fun in the aspect of we’re all pretty good so the games go faster, there’s less mistakes. It feels like real baseball almost.”

—Reporter: 541-383-0307, glucas@bendbulletin.com.