2024 Spring Team Preview: Grand Rapids Christian Eagles
March 27, 2024
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With 2023 now in the past, PBR Michigan is eagerly anticipating bringing the state the best high school coverage that can be found anywhere in 2024. Starting in February, we began releasing team previews for squads across the state. Ahead, we will have Preseason All-State Teams as well as the Preseason State Rankings coming your way.
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2024 Spring Team Preview: Grand Rapids Christian Eagles
GRAND RAPIDS - The winning ways will continue this season at Grand Rapids Christian. Coming off a state runners-up finish in 2022, the Eagles claimed the Division 2 state championship a year ago and are returning five key seniors from that squad.
What will be different for GRC is at the top, where Kurt Hoekstra is the new head coach.
“I’m honored to be taking over the program that coach (Brent) Gates and fellow coaches built,” explained Hoekstra. “I look forward to teaching our team all I’ve learned over my playing career. We have lots of talent returning this year and we’re ready to make another run at a state title.”
Grand Rapids Christian has claimed three state crowns in the past dozen years, winning it all in 2012, 2013 and last year.
While two key members of the 2023 squad have moved on to play in college, Kyle Remington at Minnesota and Ty Uchman at George Mason, this year’s team has a handful of standouts ready to make up for the big losses. Remington threw a seven-hit shutout in a 4-0 win over Flint Powers Catholic in the state semis and Uchman picked up the victory in the finals with four innings of one-run pitching.
But the cupboard is far from bare for the Eagles, which also won a state championship in 1985.
Two-time all-state outfielder Jackson Isaac is back to lead the way along with infielder Parker Seth, who had a pair of singles, scored a run and drove in a run in the state semifinals last year. The fifth-ranked senior outfielder in Michigan, Isaac is a Western Michigan commit.
A trio of infielder/pitchers are other seniors back that will be counted on heavily by Hoekstra.
Carson Custer, a Michigan State signee who is the seventh-rated 2024 right-handed pitcher in Michigan, is ready for his final season at Grand Rapids Christian with Cannon Paul and Zeke Heerema others expected to play key roles in 2024. Paul, a right-hander who was one of the top hitters on the team last season, and Heerema, a southpaw, both saw extended time on the mound a year ago, are expected to lead the staff along with Custer, who pitched as a freshman and sophomore before missing last season with an injury.
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