Korey Curtis takes over Ganado baseball program

JOSEPH CITY, Ariz.

The Ganado Hornets return a handful of veterans for the 2026 baseball season under the direction of head coach Korey Curtis.

During the offseason, Curtis took over the Ganado program after serving three seasons as an assistant coach.

“We have a quite a few that are returning, but we still have a young team,” Curtis said in an interview during the Joseph City Invitational earlier this month. “We have 14 players playing varsity and out of those 14 we have (six) seniors.”

The six seniors are Julian Smith, Jeronen Nargo, Dante Curtis, Will Davis, Jaden Bob, and Samuel James. As for the top returnees, the Ganado coach will lean on Nargo, junior Jayden Curtis and freshman Logan Alcott.

“He had a couple of homeruns last year, and he has a pretty good arm pitching,” Curtis said of Nargo, who also plays shortstop and second baseman.

As for Jayden Curtis, the Ganado coach said his nephew improved over the summer. He also noted that Alcott has been around baseball for quite some time, which earned him a varsity starting spot despite being a freshman.

“He knows the basics and I’m getting him to pitch,” Korey said.

On the pitching mound, the first-year coach is looking at three pitchers to carry most of the load. They include senior Will Davis, Curtis and Nargo.

“They’re all about the same and I think Jayden Curtis has a little bit more control and speed,” the Ganado coach said. “Will Davis has a lot of control and he’s still working on his velocity. Jeronen Largo is kind of the opposite. He has a lot of speed, and he just needs to work on his control.”

Ganado opened the season against Holbrook on Mar. 3 with a freedom game. The Roadrunners scattered 11 hits for a 17-1 win.

“The first inning, man, we looked like a solid team,” Curtis said. “We made some pretty decent plays, and it was a quick 1-2-3 inning. After that, one of our outfielders missed two pop flies and from there it kind of defined the rest of the game with errors.”

Of those Holbrook runs, Curtis said, 15 were unearned.

“It’s something that we got to clean up,” he said.

At the recent Joseph City tournament March 5-7, Ganado placed fourth in the eight-team tournament.

The Hornets opened the tournament with an 11-1 win over Red Mesa.

“Compared to our Holbrook game, we cleaned up way better,” Korey said. “I think I saw just one error from the pitcher to first base. The pitcher overthrew to first base trying to get a pickoff. That was the only error that I saw.

“It was a lot cleaner and a lot smoother,” he added. “Batting wise, we were making contact. I think these guys really pulled it together today.”

In the semifinal, the Hornets settled for a 3-3 tie with the host team as they were sent to the third-place game after losing the coin toss to Joseph City. In their final game of the tournament, the Hornets came up short to 3A North Region rival Window Rock 8-2.

On Monday afternoon, Ganado improved to 3-3-1 overall with a 16-3 win over the Valley Pirates in a freedom game.

The Hornets will host Piñon on Thursday for another freedom game before they start region action with Monument Valley on Monday, March 23.

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