First Presbyterian Christian Academy’s baseball team will host its first game of the season at 4:30 p.m. Friday against Appling Christian.
Highlander baseball coach Ryan Harmon said he has three returning players from last season — Kyle Hill, Nathan Burriss and Isiah Dickey.
“The rest are new faces to include some of the football players, who are out here helping us out,” Harmon said, adding they also picked up two former Bradwell players who transferred to FPCA.
“We are pretty young; we don’t have any seniors,” the coach said. “We also have three players who are still playing basketball and will join us full-time when they can.”
The incoming class of players includes four juniors and the rest are sophomores, freshmen and eighth-graders.
The coach also noted the baseball team will play in the single-A classification this year, a spot the coach said is more appropriate for the baseball team.
“For the school size we have and team … it’s where we belong,” Harmon said.
The coach said he set up the schedule for the Highlanders to play teams they’ve never played before and to include schools closer to them, since most region games will be farther away.
“Our region is pretty spread out … we play Twiggs Academy, Citizens Christian in Douglas … so I tried to pick non-region games that were a bit closer to home like St. Andrews in Savannah, Bible Baptist in Savannah, Appling is in Baxley and these are some new opponents we are looking forward to playing,” he said.
The coach said they have a strong pitching rotation and outfield and will do well defensively. Offensively, they will have to see who develops as the strong hitters and which players fit in the infield, but he isn’t worried.
“We have good athletes and good talent — just a little inexperienced,” he said. “And I am excited about the youth … they love being out here and they love baseball.”