Houston & Conrad Selected in First Round of 2025 MLB Draft
ATLANTA, Ga. – For the third consecutive season, a PGCBL alumni has been selected in the first round of the Major League Baseball (MLB) Draft, and for the first time since 2020, more than one player was picked in the opening round on Sunday evening.
The Minnesota Twins selected 2023 Mohawks shortstop Marek Houston from Wake Forest with the 16th pick in the First Round of the 2025 MLB Draft on Sunday. The very next pick, the Chicago Cubs selected Houston's Wake Forest teammate, outfielder Ethan Conrad, who played for the Saugerties Stallions in 2023 and 2024.
Houston was a late arrival to the Mohawks in 2023 as he was the starting shortstop with Wake Forest as they were playing all the way up to the semi-finals in the College World Series in Omaha that season. His first game with Amsterdam wasn't until July 4th, and he began his Mohawks career on fire. Marek went 2-for-2 with 3 walks, a double, a triple and 4 RBI in his first game. That was followed up by a 3-for-3 performance the next game as he ended up with a streak 12-straight plate appearances of reaching base until he finally recorded an out in his third game.
Marek hit .429 for the Mohawks in the regular season, and including playoffs, had a .370 average in 21 games played with 4 doubles, 1 triple, 14 RBI and 16 runs scored. He only struck out 4 times in his 54 at-bats and made many remarkable plays on the field as the Mohawks went on to defeat the Elmira Pioneers in the PGCBL Championship that season.
This season at Wake Forest, Houston hit .354 in 61 games with 14 doubles, 15 home runs, 66 RBI, 61 runs scored, 19 stolen bases and had an OPS of 1.055. On March 7th, he had a 10 RBI game against Notre Dame and was named the Golden Spikes Player of the Week the first week of the season.
Conrad played parts of two seasons in the PGCBL with Saugerties, initially joining hte league out of Marist in 2023. He batted .330 with 30 hits in 33 games for the Stallions, including 5 doubles, 17 runs scored and 15 RBI.
He split the summer of 2024 between Saugerties and the Bourne Braves of the Cape Cod Baseball League. In his second season with the Stallions, Conrad batted .469 with five home runs, 19 runs batted in, 23 hits and 16 runs scored in just 13 games.
After two years with Marist, Conrad joined Houston at Wake Forest for the 2025 season. He appeared in 21 games for the Demon Deacons and hit .372 with a 1.238 OPS, seven home runs and 27 RBIs.
Houston and Conrad join Griff O'Ferrall (Auburn '21), who was selected 32nd overall last year by the Baltimore Orioles and Matt Shaw (Amsterdam '21), who went 13th in 2023 to the Chicago Cubs.
In 2020, Justin Foscue (Amsterdam '18) was picked 14th overall by Texas and Jordan Westburg (Elmira '18) went 30th to the Baltimore Orioles, both out of Mississippi State.