Missoula Will Be Leading The Way In High School Baseball in 2025

Last night the Missoula County Public School Board voted of 5-4 to allow Class AA High School Baseball in Missoula starting in 2025. There has been a lot of discussion about the sport of baseball in Montana since it was voted in as a state sport back in January of 2022 by the Montana High School Association. There has been a vocal group of parents that have been trying to get the sport off the ground in Missoula since then.

Related: Missoula Parents Advocate For New High School Baseball Program 

The board meeting last night went late into the evening with 19 adults and 12 students speaking on the subject of baseball. I spoke with Missy Miculka, who has been a supporter of high school baseball in Missoula and is one of the parents behind the Facebook page "Parents For Missoula High School Baseball".

Montana Will More Than Double the Class AA Baseball Programs

Right now the state of Montana has only two Class AA baseball teams in Butte, and Belgrade. Missoula will be getting three baseball teams, one for each of the three public high schools, Sentinel, Hellgate, and Big Sky.  According to Missy, there have been petitions circulating in the schools over the last year to gauge interest in athletes playing the sport. One school had over 65 students who were interested in playing baseball. The interest to play is there. There were also petitions to gauge interest in the sport, those petitions got hundreds of signatures from the schools. Where will the teams play? According to Missy:

The fields and facilities that we can use so far that we have at least verbal agreements with, are Mount Jumbo Little League fields, Mount Sentinel Little League fields, Kelly Pines and the Paddleheads stadium.

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Missoula Fundraising Will Be the Key

Now that baseball has been approved in Missoula, one of the keys to it's success will be fundraising to get it off the ground. Schools, athletes and parents, will have the opportunity to fundraise for the first year of baseball. After that, it will be looked at like any other high school sport and will have limits on how much fundraising they can do within their "Booster Clubs".

For Those That Want to Donate to Baseball You Can Do That Now

The fundraising will be starting in earnest at the beginning of 2024 after the holidays. If anyone would like to donate now, you can write a check out to Missoula County Public Schools and if you write "High School Baseball" on the memo line, that money will go to the program. It is also considered tax deductible, but you need to make sure the memo line is filled out. The "Parents For Missoula High School Baseball" Facebook page will continue to operate and will be a good source of information on the programs and fundraising. If anyone has any questions about the baseball programs they can email missoulahsbaseball@gmail.com.