GREAT FALLS — Baseball season is back and the Great Falls Voyagers are gearing up for another season. There have been some big changes this year with only two returning players from last year, a new field manager and new assistant coaches.
Players Xane Washington and Braden Forsyth are the only two players returning to the Voyagers this year, and they say the team is already connecting with each other both on and off the field.
“The vibes are good,” Washington said. “That's the biggest thing. I mean, it was kind of you never know what's going to happen when you have new players coming in. A lot of fun, a lot of personalities, a lot of cultures coming together on this one team. And I think we're going to mesh pretty well together and it'll be exciting. I'm just excited to be on the field, see these fans, hopefully give them a show every time we step on the field.”
“We’re going to be aggressive, we’ll be aggressive at the plate," said Forsyth, a pitcher. "So far off the mound we've been pretty aggressive, and we’re going to be a pretty aggressive staff, so should be good, aggressive group.”
The Voyagers’ new field manager, Sean Repay, said his goal for the team is to foster a positive and pressure-free environment while putting a focus on development.
"We want to treat this like an organization within Major League Baseball, even though we're not," Repay said. "You know, it's to have a certain level of patience with our players, to get them to understand that failure is going to happen, have a little bit of more patience that normally (independent) ball wouldn't. We want to get guys ready to get out of here and go play. That's a goal for us. So any way we could do that from a developmental standpoint and creating processes for them to get there is huge, you know. I’m very developmental driven. I hired, you know, two very much developmental-driven coaches as assistants.”
The new players and staff are excited to show Great Falls their skills and to interact with the community.
“We want our guys to interact with fans as much as possible," Repay said. "I made that a message in the clubhouse as well, so I don't want fans out there to be afraid to come and approach our guys, whether it's to chat them up, autographs, you know, please come, we're going be active in the community as well.”
The new players are also ready to get out on the field. Mahki Backstrom, who previously played for the Augusta Greenjackets, explained what he’s noticed so far his first year with the Voyagers.
“A lot of electricity, a lot of fire, a group of guys that mesh," he said. "And most of all, it's just the team that wants to win. We don't want to sit here and be average. We're scared to be an average, we all have that same goal. We all have that drive to be better.”
The Voyagers' first home game will be against the Billings Mustangs on Tuesday, May 21 at 7 p.m.
To find out more about the Voyagers and for a full list of games this season, click here.
