A new diamond era for Holley & Kendall

Photo by Mike Wertman – The newly merged Holley/Kendall varsity baseball team began practice this afternoon. Here Holley varsity Coach Jason Cole, center, meets here with players from both schools. From left are Jacob Richardson and Cody Spellan from Kendall and Dylan Hillabush and Zach Vaccarelli from Holley.

The start of spring practice this afternoon signaled a new era for the Holley and Kendall sports programs which for the first time are fielding a merged varsity baseball team.

Due to an insufficient number of players, Kendall has been unable to field a JV baseball team each of the past two years. That situation has now left the Eagles without a sufficient number of players for a varsity team.

In order to give Kendall’s varsity aged players an opportunity to continue to play baseball the school boards of the neighboring districts have agreed to a merged team which allows Kendall players to tryout for the Holley varsity squad.

When Holley varsity Coach Jason Cole, who interestingly is a Kendall High graduate, got the first practice going several Kendall players were on hand to try out for spots on the Hawks squad which is prepping to defend its Section V Class CC title.

“It’s neat for those kids to have an opportunity to play their senior year,” said Cole. “I think overall it will help our team with the extra talent.”

The Holley/Kendall Hawks squad is scheduled to open the season on April 5 with a non league game at Medina.