Former Lions’ baseball players Shane Priest and Brandt Holland will relocate to Germany to play baseball after their college careers.

Both players now make their move overseas to Germany to play with the Cologne Cardinals in the Bundesliga 1 German professional baseball league. The team formed in 1983 in Köln, North Rhine-Westphalia. They have been known to make the playoffs on multiple occasions.

Priest was a 6’ right-handed pitcher out of St. Pete Beach, FL, for the Lions last year, and Holland was a 6’1 catcher and first baseman out of Sheffield, AL.

The two former seniors for UNA led the team to a 60.8 win percentage in the 2018 season with a record of 31-20. North Alabama ended the season on a four-game losing skid.

“I think my senior year taught me a lot about myself as a player,” said Holland. “I learned how to maintain a level head throughout an entire season and approach each day the same. I learned how to have a plan of attack throughout each at-bat.”

Shane Priest pitched over 79 innings in his final season as a Lion. His earned run average ended with 4.18 on the season and 83 strikeouts. In his senior year, he pitched 40 more innings than his junior season and nearly doubled his strikeout total. He struckout 44 during his junior year.

Holland led the North Alabama squad with a .351 batting average his senior year. During his 174 at bats, he had eight home runs, 61 hits, 12 doubles, 42 RBI’s and 38 strikeouts.

They will play in the Northern conference against teams such as the Hamburg Stealers and the Bremen Dockers.

The team’s season will start March 30.

Since teams can have only two Europeans players on the team, they can pitch a foreign player in the second game of a double-header.

Holland is expected to start at either catcher or first base for the Cardinals this upcoming season. Priest is expected to start the second game of the double-header.