West Lauderdale head baseball coach Jerry Boatner sits atop his former players, clockwise from bottom left, Northeast Lauderdale assistant coaches Drew Snider, Tyler Vick, Todd Doolittle and head coach Josh Snider.

COLLINSVILLE — Josh Snider has heard West Lauderdale head baseball coach Jerry Boatner’s legendary yodel more times than he can remember. But he was hoping to not hear it much on Friday night when his Northeast Lauderdale High School Trojans took on Boatner’s Knights on Friday night to open the 2014 season.

“When he started yodeling, you knew he was excited, and there were usually some good things happening,” said Snider, who played for Boatner and is a 2001 graduate of West Lauderdale. “I’m really not wanting to hear much of that when we play them.”

While Boatner has faced off against a former player in a battle of head coaches before when his Knights tangled with Jackson Academy and legendary WL standout Jay Powell, he has never coached against a team that the entire coaching staff was made up of ex-Knights. That’s exactly what took place on Friday night at Southeast Lauderdale in the first round of the Lauderdale County Tournament.

“They are all good guys and outstanding ballplayers,” Boatner said of the Northeast Lauderdale staff that consists of Josh Snider, Drew Snider, Tyler Vick and Todd Doolittle. “I’m sure we’ll talk a before the game and have a good time, but when the game starts I’m going to do my best to beat them and they know that.”

That, they do.

“We are all excited about it,” Josh Snider said of he and the rest of the NEL staff. “We are trying to keep it as low key as possible. The main thing is that we are playing West Lauderdale and it’s a big game.”

The first-year NEL head coach said someone who watches WL practice and the sees how he is doing things at Northeast Lauderdale would notice the similarities.

“A lot of things we do are very similar to what he does,” Snider said. “That’s what we know and understand, and it’s worked pretty good for him.”

Boatner went into Friday night with1,062 career wins and needed just seven to eclipse the all-time Mississippi record currently held by former Mooreville coach Rex Berryman. This is Boatner’s 46th season as a head baseball coach and his 41st at West Lauderdale.

“All of us played six years for him,” Snider said. “It’s all about fundamental baseball and going over the same things over and over and over. As a player it got kind of old, but now as a coach you understand what he was doing and why he was doing it.”

Snider never really intended to put together a staff of former West Lauderdale players when he became head coach of the Trojans.

“My brother (Drew) and Tyler had just graduated from college, so I decided to bring them in,” Josh Snider said. “And then I was talking to Todd and he said he was getting out of pro ball, so I asked him to come and work with the pitchers some. He has been doing that when he can and seems to really enjoy it.”

Josh Snider and Doolittle played together on the 2001 West Lauderdale state championship team, while Tyler Vick and Drew Snider played together for all by one year of their careers at WL. Drew Snider graduated from WL in 2006, while Vick graduated a year later and was part of the WL title team in 2007.

“I’m sure the game is going to be interesting, but we are all looking forward to it,” Josh Snider said on Friday morning. “Hopefully we can keep the yodeling to a minimum.”