By Jack Reaney SENIOR EDITOR
Now in their third season, the Lone Peak High School baseball team is reaching a level in which they can hang with tough teams like Beaverhead County High School (Dillon), where American Legion baseball programs have long been established.
The Big Horns went back-and-forth with the Beavers in their home opener on Tuesday, April 22 at Medina Field in Belgrade—the Big Horns’ home-away-from-home field in lieu of an adult-sized, spring-ready yard in Big Sky—before ultimately falling, 9-4.
“That’s a really tough team, man,” Lone Peak assistant coach Ryan Rothing told EBS after the game. He noted that although the Big Horns have improved and grown each season, so has the three-year-old Montana High School Association baseball league. “Our conference is still really difficult. We have to be on our ‘A’ game, every single day.”
Junior Ebe Grabow brought his “A” game as the Big Horns starting pitcher Tuesday, working out of some jams and overcoming a handful of costly errors by his defense. Grabow limited the damage, holding the Beavers to four runs through his five innings of work. He finished with six hits and three strikeouts, surrendering only one earned run.
“Ebe went out and pitched well, and we kicked a couple balls around, which extends his pitch count. And he wasn’t able to go as deep as we wanted to because of that,” said head coach Matt Morris.
“They battled though,” Morris added. “They’re trying to bust their butts. We’re going to take this, and try to figure out how to be better.”
Grabow said he enjoys pitching, and the team needs to continue working together on its defense to continue moving forward.
“We’re all improving, so we’ll just keep going—keep improving,” Grabow said.
Morris explained that the Big Horns face the same challenges in their third season: they’re at the mercy of Big Sky’s volatile spring weather, and with a short season spanning March 29 to May 9, they lack a usable practice field. The team has been working out on the Lone Peak High School turf, but game-speed practice—especially batting practice—is difficult with track athletes afoot.
“But we do the best with what we can,” Morris said. In the upcoming May 6 election, voters will decide on the Community Park Bond. If approved, one of the softball fields at the Big Sky Community Park would be renovated for adult baseball dimensions and improved drainage. The change would be an integral opportunity for Big Sky’s baseball program.
For now, Morris said the team is getting most of its live reps in real games, and he believes the team’s offense still hasn’t reached its full potential. “At this level, the game’s pretty fast. We’re just trying to catch up.”
The Big Horns did catch up with the Beavers in the middle innings.
In the third frame, Grabow reached on catcher’s interference and scored on an infield single by junior Oliver McGuire, bringing the score to 4-1.
In the bottom half of the fifth, freshman Steen Mitchell and sophomore Sid Morris walked—Mitchell was picked off at second base—and Grabow lined an RBI triple over the right fielder’s head, scoring Morris. Grabow scored on a wild pitch to bring the score to 4-3.
“It felt pretty good,” Grabow said of his triple. “… We needed momentum, and just gotta keep that rolling any time we get momentum.”
McGuire got on base and scored on a lucky play: Eli Gale hit a line drive right at the third baseman, who dropped the ball and launched a wild throw, allowing McGuire to score from first base, tying the score, 4-4, with two innings to play.
Just as quickly as the Big Horns gained momentum, the Beavers stole it back. Grabow’s pitch count removed him from the game and junior Brady Johnson immediately struggled in the top half of the sixth, allowing a single, hitting a batter, and another infield single to load the bases with no outs.
An RBI single and two walks later, the Beavers held a 7-3 lead and McGuire relieved Johnson. McGuire allowed another two runs before finally shutting down the Beaver rally.
The visitors brought in a hard-throwing reliever and shut down the Big Horn bats.
‘The best that we’ve ever had’
Lone Peak coaches were pleased to see their team stick with the Beavers, now 6-2, and force them to activate their bullpen. Despite a few defensive miscues, the Big Horn infield was busy and generally solid: Morris at third base, Johnson at shortstop and McGuire at first base all fielded their share of hard-hit balls.
Grabow said the team’s chemistry is improving, and they’re becoming more of a team instead of individual players. He believes they need to work on staying strong mentally, and not getting down on themselves—Grabow himself showed frustration on the mound after his teammates’ errors.
“On the field, we’re a lot better than we were,” Grabow said, reflecting on past seasons. “So that’s always an improvement.”
Coach Rothing said the team was young in its first two seasons, and now they’re beginning to physically and mentally mature. Core players like Grabow, Morris, McGuire and Johnson are team leaders that play the game the right way, impacting the game on both sides of the ball and on the basepaths, Rothing explained, but beyond those four, he noted the team is as deep as ever.
“Now we’ve got a nine-man lineup that is head to toe, the best that we’ve ever had,” Rothing said. “… We’ve been growing and getting better, every single season, no matter what. Guys have been working hard.”
Morris said even in the team’s third year, they’re still younger than most opponents. With much of the starting lineup being juniors or younger, it’s time for them to start turning the corner as mature baseball players as they approach the second half of the 2025 season.
