Oil your gloves and step up to the plate, because the 2026 North Eastern Baseball Association season is finally here, and Wangaratta’s Targoora Park is the place to be this weekend.

The season commences this Sunday, 26 April, and all round one matches in NEBA’s two junior and three senior grades are set to be played on the diamonds at Targoora Park, bringing together the entire competition to a single venue to launch the season in style.

Wangaratta Rangers vice-president Owen Godenzi said the club was excited to get stuck into the season.

“We’re the only place where all the games can be played at one ground, nowhere else has that facility,” he said.

“Every opening game is at Wangaratta just to get the season started, plus we get a business called Ausport which is a baseball shop from Melbourne to come up and they set up at the club to sell gear, so they make it a bit of a spectacle.”

The Rangers will field teams in every grade, even multiple teams in some divisions as baseball thrives in the region.

“We’ve got two B and C grade sides, and two under 12 sides this year - that means we’re left with one side in A grade and one in under 15s, a total of eight teams for the season,” Godenzi said.

“We’ve probably got about 15 new players at the club this season, so we’re going to step them up.

“We’ve got a fair few of the younger kids who have fed up through the system and are now ready to play in the seniors, which is good.

“The bonus of having that is we’ve got a few parents saying they want to play with their kids, we’ve got a heap of C grade players who are father and son and even mother and son combinations there.

“It’s pretty cool, we might have five or six families playing, probably more - when parents can play with their children, it’s pretty cool.

“We’ve had a whole heap of new people come [to the club] because they’ve heard baseball’s in the area.”

The Rangers have also secured the coaching services of two internationals, DeAunte Ford from USA and Sam McPherson from Canada, to help guide the club’s juniors and even step up to play for the A grade side.

While they will miss the A grade’s opening round match with Bears, Godenzi said they’d have an impact on the development of the club’s juniors.

“They’re both playing college baseball at the moment, they’re going to come over and train our kids, coach our kids to the end of the season and hopefully play in our A grade side as well,” he said.

“They’re some proper baseball people – we’re all just baseball hacks out here, but if you’ve got some Canadians and Americans, it’s their national pastime.”

The 2026 NEBA season kicks off this Sunday, 26 April at Targoora Park.

NEBA round one

Under 15 (8.30am-9.50am) – Rangers Black vs Panthers; Warriors vs Bears Gold.

Under 12 (10.30am-11.30am) – Rangers Orange vs Bears Green; Rangers Black vs Panthers; Warriors vs Bears Gold.

C grade (10.10am-11.40am) – Rangers Black vs Panthers; Bears vs Warriors.

B grade (12pm-2pm) – Rangers Orange vs Warriors White; Rangers Black vs Panthers; Bears Gold vs Warriors Maroon.

A grade (2.30pm-4.30pm) – Rangers vs Bear Green; Bears Gold vs Warriors.