The Butler County American Legion Baseball League sports a different look this season:

Butler City and Saxonburg returned to the circuit. Cranberry Township left it.

West Sunbury formed a team and has the Moniteau School District as its territory. Its home games will be at the Moniteau High School field.

No games will be played at Pullman Park because of renovations there. Butler City will play home games at Butler County Community College while Center Township will play at the Prospect Boys and Girls Club.

The league itself should be as competitive as ever. Play opens tonight with no clear-cut favorite.

Butler Township defeated East Butler in the league's best-of-three championship series last year. Both of those teams have had plenty of roster turnover.

"We have 11 new kids and a lot of younger kids," Butler Township coach Gene Zawrotuk said. "Now that Butler City's back in, we lost two of our better players - Ryan Smith and Josh Marchinoski - to them."

Zawrotuk does have a pair of 19-year-olds in first baseman Josh Edwards and shortstop Joe Rekich to bolster his attack.

Dess Schnur enters his 22nd year at East Butler with only four starting position players back. He's deep in pitching, however, with Shane Seybert, Kevin Krause, Adam Gregory, John Marra and Steve Scott all capable of solid mound production.

"Our objective is to be competitive with most of the teams we play," Schnur said. "Teams who draw from primarily one high school have a distinct advantage because those kids have been together for four months now."

Mars, Karns City, Saxonburg and West Sunbury all fall into that category.

Bob Steiner has half of his starters back at Mars and has three prime pitchers in Mike Skurko, Dan Pierre and Mike Dallmus.

"We have an influx of kids coming up from a Colt League championship team and that should help us," Steiner said. "We're going to do a lot of mixing and matching with our roster."

Terry Stiehler is in his fourth year at Karns City and has eight players returning. Matt Allen will replace Josh Smith at catcher with Cody MacGregor, Matt Ealy and Kyle Texter on the mound.

"The strength of our team is the team itself," Stiehler said. "We should be a little bit of everything."

Saxonburg didn't field a team last season as only eight players tried out. Jim Bacon is managing this year's team, assisted by Knoch High School assistant baseball coach and Eagle County baseball standout Steve Hall.

This squad is buoyed by 10 to 12 players from the Knoch varsity team, which reached the WPIAL playoffs.

"The talent on this team looks pretty good," Bacon said. "I feel good about our chances. We should be able to hang with the other teams."

Three college freshmen - Ryan Thomas from Butler County Community College, Zach Toth from Pitt-Johnstown, Jeff Foster from Clarion - join Knoch pitchers John Lefebvre and Dan Pickard in forming the nucleus of the team.

Center Township returns all but two starters from a team that fell a win short of winning the BCAL regular season title last year.

Nathan Markle, arguably the best pitcher in the league, and outfielder Josh Warburton elected to return to Center Township rather than play for the new West Sunbury team.

"They're comfortable with us and they know what this team is capable of doing," Center Township manager Kevin Shaffer said. "They want to be part of it."

Trevor Dunkel and Mike Woodward form the staff behind Marklel. Third baseman Adam Miller and catcher Clayton Smith, along with Markle, Warburton and Chet Link, who batted .650 for Butler's junior varsity this spring, anchor the offense.

"We were 1-19 two years ago and this program averaged three or four wins for 15 years," Shaffer said. "Our goal now is to be on top at season's end."

With nearly all of its starters back, Zelienople has a similar goal. Tom Schneider features a pitching staff of Jared Rectenwald, Greg Slack, Drew Schneider, Herb Brittner and Brett Hancher.

"We're excited," Schneider said. "We look up and down this league and feel we can play with any of them."

Prospect was knocked out in the second round of the playoffs last year and has four starters back. Mark White enters his second year as manager with just two seniors - pitcher Tom DeCola and catcher Gary Wray - on his roster.

Sean Ray is Prospect's No. 2 pitcher behind DeCola.

"I'm confident we can get to the playoffs, but, yeah, we have to build this thing back up," White said.

Bo Ballew, who enters his second year with Meridian, lost only four players from last year's 9-11 team. Joe Ference and Jimmy McCaslin are his top pitchers.

"Everyone in our starting lineup this year started for at least a while last year," Ballew said. "It's anybody's championship this year and we can be in the middle of that."

Shortstop Aaron Ordy and third baseman Scott Cukovich anchor Meridian's hitting attack.

Butler City returns to the league with a 13-player roster. Jerome Piroch, who worked with many of the players in Colt League, will manage the squad.

Outfielder-pitcher Phil Wahler and pitcher Brian Warheit are key players, along with catcher Ben Cress.

"Ben has a good arm and is a student of the game," Piroch said. "He's a young player who should be good for several years.

"We're optimistic with the players we have."