Centerville -- Two of the 20 players in this year's ACE Program in Chicago are coming to Indian Hills to continue their education and pursue their baseball dreams.  ACE stands for Amateur City Elite and has been credited with changing lives and giving families in a disadvantaged part of Chicago opportunities that might not exist without it.

The IHCC signees at this week's ceremony at Guaranteed Rate Field, home ballpark of the Chicago White Sox, are Jamarion Loston and Myles Norman, teammates at Morgan Park High School.

An article by Phil Rogers on MLB.com said that when Loston was a sophomore at Morgan Park, on the far south side of Chicago, he went on Twitter to express his outlook for the future.  Rogers said Loston wrote, on Dec. 17, 2015, "Baseball (is) my only way out."

The article points out that IHCC is "a long way from (Loston's) hometown but a good place to launch a career."

There were 20 players in ACE's 2018 class and all 20 signed letters of intent to play baseball at the collegiate level on the same day this week.  Other members of the program received scholarships to Duke, TCU, Michigan, Minnesota and Purdue, putting Indian Hills in some pretty good company.

Before they signed their respective letters, each player announced their name, where they are headed next year and what the ACE program has meant to them.

ACE was founded 10 years ago and, including this class, 168 athletes will have gone on to higher education institutions, according to the White Sox, whose scout Nathan Durst is one of the co-founders.  Durst has said that high school players in the city were not being seen by college coaches, one of the reasons behind starting the program.  He pointed out it has been a blessing for many players and families over the past decade.