This season carries extra weight this year for three senior captains of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin boys’ baseball team.
The three teammates – Oliver Henke, Jasen Thomas and Stefan Alexandrov – are looking ahead to college while aiming for a championship in their final year of high school. Henke and Thomas pitch and play outfield, while Alexandrov pitches and plays first base.
Henke, 18, has committed to Swarthmore College, a Division III program in Pennsylvania. He plans on continuing to pitch alongside playing outfield. “I’m super excited to be able to experience a super high level of baseball and improve,” Henke said. “Obviously with college, a lot of it is academic, and that’s going to be a big focus, but I’m just so excited to keep playing baseball.”
Alexandrov, 18, is weighing his options for next year but has interest from Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., and other Division III schools. He plans on transitioning to pitching full-time while in college. “The competitive environment of college baseball is definitely going to motivate me to get better,” Alexandrov said. “I just want to play against really good competition. I know every level is good competition, but college ball is different, and I’m really looking forward to it.”
Thomas, 18, is still deciding whether he wants to fully play baseball at the college level or focus on academics while playing club baseball. “It’s always been a dream to keep on playing and go to the next level,” Thomas said, “but recently I’ve gotten to the point where I kind of want to just go to school, get a degree, and just have fun playing baseball along the way.”
For head coach Robert Merrill, the commitment process of these players has been a full circle moment.
Merrill became the CRLS baseball coach eight years ago and has organized multiple community baseball events throughout Cambridge, focused on growing the baseball community. Henke, Alexandrov and Thomas were some of the first kids to show up to the event, and Merrill has seen them grow since.
“It’s been really cool to kind of see their natural progression from quiet, shy freshmen that are just happy to be there to them developing into confident young men that lead the team by example,” Merrill said.
While the three have their eyes set on playing baseball at the college level, they have business to handle first — they want to leave with a championship.
“We’re coming,” Alexandrov said. “We’re coming for that title.”
The Falcons are entering this year with confidence. With a new season comes new faces, and this CRLS team feels more equipped than previous years. The team went 9-11 and missed the playoffs last year.
“I think this year is the best the team’s ever been. We have great depth,” Thomas said. “Everybody can hit, everybody can really contribute, so I think this year is really our year to make a boom and show off Cambridge.”
A title would be a great achievement for the team, but it would hold an even deeper meaning to the players as they would etch their names in the history books of Cambridge athletics.
“The kids in Cambridge love playing for the word Cambridge on their chest,” Merrill said. “Kids want to stay in their local hometown, they want to play for their local home team, and they want to put on that Cambridge jersey.”
This story is part of a partnership between Cambridge Day and the Boston University Department of Journalism.
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