Baker takes second at National PPK contest

By Michael Carter

Enter­prise Editor

clydenews@bizwoh.rr.com

Clyde youth Austin Baker recently returned from Bal­ti­more, Mary­land, on a trip of a lifetime.

Baker, 14, just fin­ished sec­ond in the nation in the 14–15 age group in the National Punt, Pass and Kick com­pe­ti­tion. He is the son of Steve and Amy Baker of Clyde.

“This whole expe­ri­ence was amaz­ing,” the youth said. “I had so much fun.”

Baker’s jour­ney started in Fre­mont, where he fin­ished first in his age group to move on to the Tif­fin Region for Punt, Pass and Kick. In Tif­fin, he again took first place in his age group which moved him to the next level. That took him to Cleveland.

“We com­peted at Cleveland’s inside train­ing facil­ity in Berea,” he stated.

In order for Baker to move on to the national com­pe­ti­tion, he needed to place in the top four for his age group out of all the com­peti­tors from all 32 NFL teams.

Baker did just that by fin­ish­ing fourth for his age — beat­ing out all the other youth rep­re­sent­ing from the other NFL teams mov­ing him on to Bal­ti­more and the national competition.

The Punt, Pass and Kick orga­ni­za­tion pre­sented Baker with two plane tick­ets to Bal­ti­more as part of his pack­age – cre­at­ing some­what of a prob­lem for the family.

“We had to get mom a ticket to go with us,” Baker explained.

“Dad was my coach, but I wanted mom to be there also,” the teen said.

Baker and his fam­ily also received tick­ets to the Ravens and Hous­ton Tex­ans AFC Play­off game. “I got to be on the field dur­ing pregame,” Baker said with a smile.

“I got to watch Ray Lewis come out of the locker room and go crazy before the game, that was awe­some,” he added.

Baker, who is a fresh­man at Clyde High School, played quar­ter­back and safety for the Fliers fresh­man team this past fall.

He also han­dled all the kick­ing duties for the fresh­man as well. “I prac­ticed with dad all sum­mer long kick­ing field goals,” said Baker. “I must have kicked over 1,000 field goals this sum­mer,” he continued.

Baker helped the fresh­man Fliers to an unde­feated SBC sea­son where he fig­ures he kicked around 30 PAT’s. “I just had so much fun,” “This was really an expe­ri­ence of a life­time,” he said.

Posted by Michael Carter on Jan 25 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.