American Legion baseball is back for another season in Horry County and, like any other season, there is change.

In this case, it starts at the top.

The American Legion Horry Post 111 is no longer affiliated with the program.

“The Post decided they weren’t going to sponsor us anymore,” said Horry head coach Jason Gore. “So, me and two other coaches decided to form our own LLC and call it Horry Legion Baseball.”

The team will continue as before with the new organization name as well as new teal and black uniforms.

“Nothing’s really changed,” Gore said. “We were doing everything anyway. All we’ve done is changed the name.”

The uniforms had to be different to remove the Post 111 logo, Gore said. The team does not yet have a nickname.

The team will be playing this summer at St. James because of extensive work taking place on the Conway field. The team will return to Conway in 2026.

Horry, which opens the season on Friday against Florence Post 1 at Marion’s Fox Field, will be in League 2 once again with Florence, Manning-Santee Post 68 and Sumter Post 15.

But, unlike last year, only three of the four teams in each league will make the playoffs, putting a premium on each game.

“It does,” Gore said. “They wanted to shorten the playoffs because of rainouts and stuff. There is a short period of time to get the state championship in before the regionals begin.”

Another positive change is rosters get to be kept at 22 with no cutdown required before the playoffs began. They do have to be reduced to 18 before the state championship round.

“Hopefully, we’ll have to worry about that later,” Gore said.

And Gore feels good about his team, which has several returning veterans, including some college players.

Pitching is always at a premium in American Legion baseball with so many games being played in a short period of time.

Leading the way for Horry are Aynor left-hander Jaret Edwards, who was just named pitcher of the year in Class 3-A, and Loris right-hander Aiden Suggs, who was 5-1 with a 2.27 earned run average and 81 strikeouts in 46 1/3 innings. Suggs has a fastball that touches the mid-90s.