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Frank Varga

ANACORTES — Kyle Dixon’s future may be in football, but for now he’s happy to be back on the baseball field.

After taking two years off from baseball, the Anacortes senior is back on the field — more specifically the mound — for the Seahawks, helping them stay afloat in a competitive Northwest Conference.

Dixon was a standout prep quarterback who threw for 1,352 yards and 12 touchdowns this season and recently committed to play at Dakota State University in Madison, South Dakota.

But while his goal of playing college football is within sight, there was one more he wanted to accomplish before he left high school. He wanted to join his teammates for one more season of baseball.

“I wanted to play a couple of seasons with my good friends,” Dixon said. “I’ve known some of the guys, like Kyle Macy, since fifth grade.”

In his freshman year, Dixon was going back after a fly ball when he felt his left knee buckle beneath him. Dixon, who had problems with the knee before, had suffered a serious injury, a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

“It had problems before and it finally gave out,” Dixon said.

While Dixon was able to recover from the injury, he decided to stick to football. He played well, throwing for 3,456 yards and 38 touchdowns in the past two seasons, but when summer rolled around last year, he wanted to play baseball again.

When he came back — first for the Anacortes Steamers American Legion team, then for the high-school squad, he found the two years had taken some of the polish off his skills.

“When he came back this summer, he was a fish out of water,” said Anacortes High School coach Pat Swapp.

At first, Dixon found difficulty getting comfortable in game action and finding his fastball. So he did what he had done in football and went to work, staying after practice to fine-tune his swing; working with coaches to pitch more consistently.

“It took extra work,” Dixon said. “But the whole team has been great, staying after with me, helping me get extra reps.”

With time, that work started to show itself on the mound. After a one-inning appearance in his first stint, Dixon strung together four effective outings, giving up one unearned run against Lake Stevens, then allowing just three earned runs in three games against tough Northwest Conference opponents: Mount Vernon, Sehome and Lynden.

In his past two games, he gave up one earned run to Sehome in five innings and none to Lynden in seven. The Mariners and Lions are the two top teams in the Conference.

“He’s got curveball and fastball and throws both for strikes,” Swapp said. “He doesn’t throw especially hard, but he has a little hestitaion in his delivery that makes it tough for guys to square up his fastball.”

And his accuracy has returned.

“Last summer he’d walk five or six guys (in a game),” Swapp said. “Now he’s throwing nothing but strikes.”

Dixon said his confidence is back, too.

“In the Lake Stevens game, I realized I could pitch well again,” he said. “Every game, I’ve gotten a little better.”

Trevor Pyle can be reached at 360-416-2156 or by e-mail at