Eagles return to baseball diamond

HOULTON, Maine — Baseball is returning to Greater Houlton Christian Academy this spring, marking the first time in several years that the school has fielded a team.

Montie Graham will be guiding the Eagles on the diamond this season and brings a wealth of baseball knowledge to the position. Graham coached junior varsity baseball at Houlton from 2004-06 and also guided a junior high baseball team for GHCA from 2016-17. In addition, he has coached for many years in the Houlton Area Little League system and most recently was the coach of the Houlton Junior League team in 2017.

The Eagles already have made several changes to their schedule to accommodate the fact that they have no home field to play on. Practice also has been a problem as the team has not had much chance to get outside to train in a parking lot.

“It has been tough practicing indoors at GHCA as our gym is so small,” the coach said. “But we do the best we can with what we have.”

There also is no batting cage for the Eagles to hone their hitting skills, so instead they have had to rely on doing “soft toss” drills, fielding grounders and hitting balls off a tee to develop hand-eye coordination.

Members of the Eagles include senior Isaiah Shaw; juniors Isaac Potter and Cole Winslow; sophomores Parker Brewer, Kyle Carver, Trevor Schools and Will Austin; freshmen Austin Winslow, Joel Carmichael and Jeremy Stone; and eighth-graders Silas Graham and Brock Thompson.

Potter and Cole Winslow last played baseball two years ago as freshmen when GHCA formed a cooperative with East Grand in Danforth.

GHCA has a very young team, Graham said, but he is optimistic for a successful season.

“I have several kids that can pitch and play multiple positions and we should have good speed,” he said. “We will look to improve each game and our hopes are to qualify for the playoffs.”

GHCA is tentatively scheduled to open its season at 4 p.m. on Monday, April 23, at Katahdin.