South Ace Briggs Signs with UMaine

“Ever since I was little, one day I just started playing wiffleball, and I found I was pretty good at it,” said Alex Briggs South Kingstown High School’s ace south paw.

  Last month, Alex Briggs, the baseball team’s number one pitcher, verbally committed to play baseball for the Division One University of Maine Black Bears team. 

  Briggs will be receiving a partial scholarship for roughly around twenty to thirty percent with financial aid benefits from the Orono, Maine University.  He will be joining five other recruits in Matt Verrier, Colin Gay,  Mike Connolly, Shaugh Coughlin, and Troy Black that are expected to have an immediate impact on the ball club.

  “Friends from Michigan that were older than me went on to college to play baseball and I saw how successful they were and it became one of my dreams to play in college,” Briggs explained.

  Briggs lived in Michigan one year before moving to South Kingstown in the sixth grade. 

  The southpaw senior will be the first pitcher from SKHS to go play Division One baseball since 2008 graduate Jackson Geary, who just redshirted his freshman year at Coastal Carolina University.  

  “He’s 6 ‘5”, left handed….  he’s got the size, he’s fast, and strong,” said SKHS’s head baseball coach Mr. Sauro.

  Briggs, who started playing baseball at the age of seven in Maine, is heading into his tenth year of playing baseball and fourth for the SKHS varsity team.  After having a heartbreaking exit in the semi–finals of the state playoffs last year at McCoy Stadium, Briggs and his teammates are preparing for another great run and have set very high expectations.

  “This season we are going to be one of the best teams in our division, if not the best, and anything less than playoffs will be a disappointment,” Briggs said.   “We should be able to make it to the state finals.  We have a strong team.”

  No matter what happens to Alex and the team this coming season, during his college career at the University of Maine, and the for the rest of his baseball career, one thing will always be the same.

  “Alex is a great human being.”  Coach Sauro said.  “He is the type of kid who’s done volunteer work, he’s an eagle scout, and he’s the kind of kid you would want your son to be like.”