Philip Butts’ signature on his National Letter of Intent to join the Brewton-Parker baseball team served as another signal of how far the Snook Christian Academy athletic program has come with this senior class.

Out of the five seniors on the Eagle baseball team this year, all will ascend to the college ranks after graduation.

Hayden Joiner signed with the Faulkner Eagle football team and Robert Dunn is heading to the same campus to play baseball. Jayson Kidwell, recently announced as Snook’s first baseball all-star, and Kareem Harris, the Eagles’ first individual outdoor track state champion, were set to cement their pledges in the coming weeks.

Not only that, but with Faulkner also in the Southern States Athletic Conference alongside Brewton-Parker, Butts will continue to see some familiar faces.

“We’ll be in the same conference so I really look forward to that,” Butts said Wednesday. “We had the best season that Snook has ever had in baseball. We went to the second round of the playoffs but unfortunately wasn’t able to advance. We’ve played out best with what we had and I’m very proud of us and we have a bright future ahead too.”

Butts’ baseball future is taking him to Mount Vernon, Georgia and about 370 away from his Alabamian home but he said he felt comfortable in his first few moments on campus.

“Whenever I stepped on campus, it felt like home,” Butts said. “I really liked the vibe of the team and the coaches. They were really energetic and really showed they cared.”

The Barons at Brewton-Parker were set to open the SSAC Baseball Championship tournament Wednesday as the No. 7 seed against second-seed Talladega College.

The Eagles from Snook Christian earned the No. 2 seed in the Alabama Independent School Association’s Class A state bracket and completed a first-round sweep of Meadowview with wins of 5-1 and 12-0. Kidwell spun a 14-strikeout complete game in the opener before Dunn earned the pitching victory and was joined by Joiner and Butts in producing 2 RBIs in the clincher.

“It is very big because the seasons have been up and down, we’ve had some really good ones and some really bad ones so it feels good to go out on a good season,” Butts said.

In the fall after he and the seniors helped bring the Eagles back to the playoffs two years removed from not having a team, Butts was named Snook Christian Academy’s first football all-star. Athletic Director Bob Gabel said he might have thought at that time Butts would sign to play college football but was more than happy to see this end result.

“It feels good,” Butts said. “I mean this has been my dream since I was 3 years old so it feels good that it’s finally become a reality.”

Butts said he could finally breathe a sigh of relief and looked forward to enjoying the rest of high school before he begins his exercise science degree.

“I’ve been stressing out a lot trying to figure out where I’m going to go so it feels really good to know exactly where I'm going,” he said.