With the beginning of the each new season, the players and the coaches all have goals to achieve. This season the junior high boys baseball team can achieve their goals on a new field.

In 2014, coach Adam Wood began his coaching career as junior high baseball head coach. That season featuring a talented team, they won the championship game. Before winning the championship, he had one goal. That goal was to change the way the field looked, transforming it into a beautiful baseball diamond.

“One of my main goals, when I started coaching at the school, was to make the field better,” Wood said. “The fact that it only took three years and now it’s one of the best fields in the city is very crazy and impressive.”

The building process did not take as long as Wood thought it would have. Wood had many things to get cleaned up from getting rid grass to putting up actual baseball fences. The money for this project was all donated by an anonymous donor.

“Well before the season, we killed the infield grass and then reseeded it,” Wood said. “We redid all the dimensions of the field so everything is legit. We added actual baseball dirt to the infield, and we put up the fence. Jon Raynes, Steve Villines and I were the ones responsible for doing all the work to improve the actual playing field and we had an anonymous donor step up and donate the money for the fence. Three years ago the field was not very good and now it is honestly one of the best junior high fields in the Valley, and better than some high school fields.”

One of the key helpers with the new field was Steve Villines. Villines believes the best way to help the high school baseball team is to prepare them in junior high.

“I wanted to help this project because I really believe in our youth program,” Villines said. “It all starts with getting junior highers out there on the field to play and get better. However, you can’t get that with a bad field, that’s why it was so important to remodel our field and make it better. I believe with the new field it will develop them into good ball players and eventually that will make the high school team better.”

The new field not only provided good looks, it also helped the team with practice. With the new field, the team can practice different drills and it feels more real. Hunter Raynes, ‘21, has played both years as a junior higher and he appreciates the new things the field brings.

“I absolutely love the new field,” Raynes said. “With the field, we can now do different drills and get a feel of what real baseball is like. I like to thank the anonymous donor who helped out with this project. My favorite part of the new field are the fences and how they look.”

With the new field, the team finished their season 3-2-1 in league. The Eagles lost in the semi-final playoff game against Copper 11-4.

To read another article check out: COLUMN: Leaning from losing.

This writer can be reached via Twitter: JohnMonke and via email: John Monke.