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Grafton, WI – The Lakeshore Chinooks are excited to announce that Travis Akre will return for his second season as Field Manager for the team in 2019.\u00a0 Following in the footsteps of former managers John Vodenlich (2012) and Eddy Morgan (2013-2017), Akre will maintain the helm for the club\u2019s eighth season as a member of the prestigious Northwoods League, widely recognized as the top summer collegiate league. After posting a 29-42 in Akre\u2019s first season, the team will look to return to the NWL playoffs for a fifth time and compete for the coveted Northwoods League Championship, first won by the Chinooks in 2014.<\/p>\n
Akre, who will complete his seventh season as the head coach for Ellsworth Community College in Iowa Falls, Iowa, is anxious to build upon his first experience in the league and has been intimately involved in the selection and recruitment of the 2019 Chinook roster. \u201cI\u2019m truly honored to lead the Lakeshore Chinooks for a second season. When it comes to summer collegiate baseball, there is no place I\u2019d rather be. We feel like we have put together a well-rounded roster for the upcoming summer,\u201d said Akre. \u00a0As an experienced junior college coach, Akre is well-connected at all levels of collegiate baseball and will draw on those connections to supplement the roster throughout the demanding summer.<\/p>\n
Besides the experience, Akre\u2019s easy going personality and his focus on developing young players proved to be a good fit for the organization. \u201cTravis stepped into some big shoes when he replaced Eddy Morgan,\u201d says Jon Cain, the Chinooks\u2019 Baseball Operations Manager, \u201cbut he kept the focus on the players and throughout the season, you could see that he was becoming more comfortable and more observant about how to be most effective as a manager in this league.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot that goes into it and Travis gets that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Akre also understands the powerful impact the club can have in the community and embraces the opportunity to interact with fans.\u00a0 \u201cOur players will also develop as young, professional men throughout the summer,\u201d said Akre. \u201cWe want them to enjoy their summer and take advantage of every opportunity to reach out to the community. It\u2019s an exciting time for all of us to be a Chinook!\u201d\u00a0 Akre\u2019s coaching staff and roster will be announced in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n
Akre and his squad will open the 2019 season with two road games in Battle Creek on May 28th<\/sup> and 29th before returning to Mequon for the home opener at Kapco Park against the Wisconsin Woodchucks on May 30th<\/sup> at 6:35pm.<\/p>\n The Lakeshore Chinooks are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. The Northwoods League is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 22 teams, drawing significantly more fans, in a friendly ballpark experience, than any league of its kind.\u00a0A valuable training ground for coaches, umpires and front office staff,\u00a0over 200 former Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball,\u00a0including three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS), two-time World Series Champions Ben Zobrist (CHC) and Brandon Crawford (SFG) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (BOS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET) and Curtis Granderson (TOR).\u00a0\u00a0All league games are viewable live via the\u00a0Northwoods League portal<\/a>. For more information, visit\u00a0\u00a0www.lakeshorechinooks.com<\/a>\u00a0or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the Chinooks as your favorite team.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Grafton, WI – The Lakeshore Chinooks are excited to announce that Travis Akre will return for his second season […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":9456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-team-news"],"yoast_head":"\n