CHS fills baseball coaching position

Former Portales coach Greg Hill has been hired by Clovis High School as its new baseball coach.

Athletic director Brian Stacy made the announcement on Monday. Hill replaces Shane Shallenberger, who coached CHS for seven years before taking a job at Rio Rancho’s Cleveland High School in June.

Hill, 45, coached the Rams from 1994-98 and from 2001-02, leading them to the Class 3A state finals three times. He has been a social studies teacher at PHS for 16 years, and will assume those duties this fall in Clovis.

He was chosen from six finalists, including CHS assistant coaches Shane Leatherwood, Drew Hatley and Joe Clabaugh.

“We had a fantastic pool of candidates, including the assistants with the program,” Stacy said. “The reason we went with Greg is because of his experience. He’s got a lot of respect, not only from Portales but from the baseball community.”

Hill said he watched the Wildcats during their recent summer season and, in fact, his son Jordan played with them. Jordan, an outfielder, will be a sophomore at CHS in the fall after starting for the Class 3A runnerup Rams last spring.

“I’ve watched a lot of the Clovis kids come up through Little League,” Greg Hill said. “I’m excited to get down there.”

He said he hopes to be able to work with the Little Leagues in Clovis.

“I think that’s really important as far as a feeder program,” he said.

Hill plans to stress fundamentals with the Wildcats.

“I believe teams that I’ve coached always were fundamentally sound,” he said. “Usually, most of the teams playing for state championships were the most fundamentally sound.”

Clovis went 12-16 in 2008, earning the No. 16 seed in the Class 5A state baseball tournament. The Cats were swept by top-seeded La Cueva in a best-of-3 first-round series.

Shallenberger had a 94-89 record at Clovis, leading the Cats to a 5A state runnerup finish in 2004.