Spring Training an Essential Warm-up for Baseball Team

During this year’s spring break, the GCS Dragons varsity baseball traveled to the Jackie Robinson Training Center in Vero Beach, FL. The trip is an annual spring training tradition. The group stayed in player villas at the former Los Angeles Dodgers Spring Training Complex, where they practiced and held batting practice sessions. The team faced two teams from Colorado and teams from Colorado, Missouri, New Jersey, North Dakota, and Ontario, Canada, in three varsity and three junior varsity games.

The varsity squad saw the Dragons face Colorado 3A state runner-up Lutheran from Parker, CO, in their first spring training game of the week. The Dragons jumped out to an early lead before Lutheran tied the score. GCS retook the lead, but Lutheran secured a walk-off 9-8 win in the bottom of the seventh.

GCS rebounded the next day with a 9-0 victory over Greeley West from Greeley, CO. Ryan Fagan ’22, Dylan Levin ’23, and Dylan Melton ’23 combined for the shutout win. In its final varsity game of the week, the Dragons ran into a stout St. Louis University High team from St Louis, MO, and suffered a tough loss.

The team’s top hitters for the week were Cary Pakulla ’24 and Connor Wilson ’23, each notching a .429 batting average. Pakulla led the team with five clutch RBI. In the three JV games, several players received valuable experience during spring training at various positions that will help the team in the future. One outstanding performance was a tremendous pitching performance by Ian Noble ’23 against a team from Fargo, ND.

In addition to their spring training work on the field, the team attended the Washington Nationals’ spring training session, seeing major league players in action. The team was also able to chat with a few minor league coaches, including varsity coach Chris Garber’s brother.

The spring training week was highly beneficial in preparing the team for the upcoming MIAA B Conference schedule. Go Dragons!