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Eagles gain valuable baseball experience By GREG STILES Eagle Point's baseball team got the jump on spring last week when the Eagles played and trained under a warm, sunny sky in Peoria, Ariz. The Eagles played five games, rode hot air balloons and horses and spent a lot more time on the diamond than their Southern Oregon Conference counterparts back home. What's more, the Eagles got to watch spring training contests between the Mariners and Athletics and the Giants and Brewers. They also got to watch major and minor leaguers go about their daily routines for three hours prior to the first pitch. "You could walk right up and watch them hit, talk with them and get their autographs," Eagle Point coach Tom Britton says. "Watching the pros' habits and mannerisms isn't something you can see unless you're there live." The Eagles, three coaches and others flew out of Sacramento on Saturday, March 11, and arrived home Saturday. It cost $9,500 to take the team down for a week. The money came from baseball camps, a golf tournament, youth baseball funds, student recognition and achievement funds and other sources. Many of the players had never been to Arizona and some had never flown. "They were a little nervous about flying," Britton admits. The Eagles were accompanied by 18 family members. "I wanted this to be an experience that involved everyone who wanted to go," Britton says. The Eagle Point entourage spent the better part of the week at the same motel as the San Diego Padres. The Eagles played four Oklahoma schools and host Greenway High. In all there were 13 teams in town from Oklahoma, Utah, Washington and California for the Greenway Baseball Festival. More teams were due in this week for another round of games. Each school sent in $100 to the Arizona Baseball Academy schedule maker, who secured fields and umpires. "All we had to do was show up," Britton says. "One team pays one umpire and the other team pays the other ump and provides game balls and you're ready to play." The level of competition was just what Britton wanted -- tough. Britton says the teams Eagle Point played had a combined 16-3 record during the week. The Oklahoma teams had several games under their belts before the trip, and Greenway was 11-1 before playing the Eagles. Baseball is a year-round sport in Arizona, and the players looked polished. "The baseball academy there is like Club West (where many top Crater and Eagle Point wrestlers work out)," Britton says. "They play all year. They're all 5-foot-10, 170 pounds, except for the pitchers, who are 6-2 or 6-3. They're all groomed ... Because the kids play year around, the level is so much higher. "Their hitters one through nine smack the ball, and they're smart base runners." Nonetheless, Britton says, the top SOC teams would stack up well once they round into midseason form. Britton's sunburned squad returned to the field for practice Monday and plays Silverton today. "I think this puts us way ahead of the game," Britton says. "First of all, we were playing every day. We had a choice of practice or playing. When we were playing, we were getting two hours of batting practice, infield and outfield. And the facilities we used were really great." Britton found out about the Arizona festival from a coach at Jesuit High in Portland. The advantage of going the week prior to spring vacation was that Eagle Point didn't run the risk of playing another Oregon team. Jesuit and West Linn, for instance, are 20 miles apart but once played each other in Arizona. Britton wouldn't mind going back to the Valley of the Sun each year. "You can't measure how much was learned," Britton says. "No matter what else happens, even if we were to win a league championship or make the playoffs, the boys would remember the spring of 2000 as the year they went to Phoenix for spring training." CLASSIC OPPORTUNITY -- The inaugural Bob Newland Classic Track and Field Invitational meet is scheduled for April 21 at Bob Newland Track. It's the first invitational high school meet put on by a Medford school since the old Rogue Relays fell by the wayside more than a decade ago. The twist to this meet, however, is that it's limited to freshmen and sophomores. "From our standpoint, there are lots of invitationals for varsity athletes and none for freshmen and sophomore," South Medford coach Bill Rowan says. "We have JV events in conjunction with duals, but there is no opportunity for freshmen and sophomores to be in a big invitational with just freshmen and sophomores." In essence, the meet, sponsored by Providence Health Systems and the Mail Tribune, will allow freshmen and sophomores to see how they stack up against their peers. Freshmen and sophomores make up roughly 60 percent of most track teams. "Often a kid's first experience is against one of the top kids in the conference and sometimes against the top kids in the state," Rowan says. That can be discouraging, even for someone who was a cream-of-the-crop performer in junior high. It might even cause someone to not turn out the following spring. "Basically, what we're going to be looking at," says Rowan, "is our varsity teams in another two or three years." (Greg Stiles is a Mail Tribune sports writer. He can be reached at 776-4483 or at [email protected] ) Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA