GREAT FALLS — The Great Falls Public Schools board of directors voted unanimously Monday night to add baseball as a sanctioned high school sport in 2026, SWX TV reported Tuesday.
The decision to add Great Falls High and Great Falls CMR grows to 10 the number of Class AA programs playing baseball. Billings and Missoula schools have voted to play in 2025.
Belgrade and Butte were the only two Class AA programs among the 23 teams competing this past spring.
The Great Falls board first voted to sanction baseball in 2022 but had spent the past two years considering feasibility, logistics, costs, facilities, and other issues. The board met again in June and Great Falls Schools athletic director Mike Henneberg provided specific details, including costs and benefits of offering baseball.
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On Monday, community members were invited to offer opinions on the idea before the vote. Two who spoke in favor were American Legion baseball players, per SWX.
Florence-Carlton’s Jake Roth (7) celebrates with his teammates during the State All Class Baseball Tournament championship game between the Hamilton Broncs and the Florence-Carlton Falcons at Ogren-Allegiance Park in Missoula on Saturday, May 18, 2024.
“It’ll probably feel, pretty nice, like all the other football players walking around, the basketball players walking around, like just repping the name,” Great Falls CMR sophomore Deakin Boles said. “And you don’t really have, like, a sport to do it because like, we’re mainly baseball players and or like anything else. So, it’ll feel nice to be able to like, rep our name and just show off our spirit throughout the school like everyone else can.”
Said CMR sophomore Tristan Schoby: “Yeah, I think, overall, I just think it’s going to be a pretty cool experience to being once of the first, wrestlers to have that on a team will be one of the first baseball teams for our high school. I think that will mean a lot.”
Baseball was restored as a high school sport by the Montana High School Association in 2023, with 21 teams representing 25 schools. Twenty-three teams competed this past spring.
