A year ago the Silver Creek/Forestville baseball program was unable to field a varsity team, but this year the Black Knights will be back on the diamond with new head coach Chris VanCheri.

“I’m excited,” VanCheri said about taking over the varsity program. “I coached the jayvee team last spring; we had a good year. We built a pretty strong culture. There was no varsity team last year so there was a lot of work done at the jayvee level and I’m excited to move up to the varsity level. We have a lot of young players that are excited to keep building what we started and we have a coaching staff that is extremely excited to get going this spring.”

For the previous 44 years, Silver Creek was coached by Mike Janisch, having plenty of success and producing a lot of great talent along the way. Filling in those big shoes will be one of his former players in VanCheri.

“When I played in high school it was under Coach Janisch,” VanCheri stated. “It’s a little surreal, he coached me, he coached a lot of my good friends, he coached a lot of people in the area. I’m excited to continue and to build on what he built over the past 44 years. He had a long run, he was very successful with a lot of good ball players under him and I’m excited to see if I can do the same and keep it rolling.”

Noah Hodkin P-J photo by Jon Neubauer

VanCheri graduated from Silver Creek in 2020 and then went on to attend Houghton University where he played baseball before finishing his master’s degree in physical education at Canisius University.

“The community is excited,” VanCheri said. “I’m excited, all the guys are excited. We’ve had offseason practices since early January so the excitement has kind of been building. We have a lot of work to do, we know that, the guys are ready, we’re a really young team.”

While the Black Knights were unable to field a varsity roster a year ago, they did have VanCheri’s junior varsity team and a modified program. When the team returns this year he will have several of those players ready to make the jump to varsity baseball.

“It’s huge having the jayvee and modified last year was awesome,” VanCheri said. “Guys were able to still get out on the field, practice, develop, compete, learn and build a brotherhood which is one of my main goals this spring. A lot of guys still got to play, a lot of the guys that didn’t play last year are coming back to play varsity and I know they’re all excited.”

Monday night marked the first practice with his group and the rebirth of Silver Creek/Forestville baseball.

Hunter Anderson P-J photo by Jon Neubauer

“Overall, we’re just ready to keep building the culture and tonight is the start of something special,” VanCheri added. “Especially with no varsity team last year that built the excitement up even more. We’re kind of going from the ground up here since there was no program last year. There is a lot of excitement from members of the community and every one involved in Silver Creek baseball. … The goal this year is to develop, compete, keep building the strong culture we have and bring Silver Creek baseball back from having a year off.”

Noah Reynolds P-J photo by Jon Neubauer