Gray Collegiate baseball hitting stride

By WORTHY EVANS

Columbia - Gray Collegiate Academy’s baseball team finds itself in similar territory, albeit with a different twist without a Region 4-2A schedule.

The War Eagles, 11-1 (not counting forfeits) as of March 28, have veteran leadership from six seniors, and young and experienced talent from seven juniors, three sophomores, and two freshmen.

“We’re playing pretty well. Our hitting has cooled off a bit right now, but that’s just because of 12 games into the season and we’re playing a lot of good teams with a lot of good pitching,” Gray head coach Charley Assey said. “We’re playing a lot of 3A, 4A, and 5A schools and they do a good job of pitching around certain things that our guys can do.”

Last summer, the region’s schools opted to forfeit all games this academic year. The schools felt that Gray’s ability to recruit athletes outside its school zone gave the War Eagles an unfair competitive advantage.

Doing so gave all of Gray’s athletic teams region championships, and left the school’s teams to devise their own schedules.

The War Eagles schedule features games against 5A’s Spring Valley, Boiling Springs, and Rock Hill, 4A’s Irmo, and 3A’s Dreher and Marlboro County, as well as SCISA powers Cardinal Newman and Augusta Christian, among other teams.

Gray’s pitching starts with senior right-hander Blaine Redmond, in his third year with the team. Junior righties Will Magee and Cam Southern. Southern and Redmond are both 4-0 on the mound.

Behind the plate is freshman Riley Huggins, unless Huggins is on the mound. In that case junior J.R. Rizo serves as catcher. Sophomore Cole Adams at first base, sophomores Garrett Blankenship and M.J. Hornsby splitting time at shortstop and second base, and junior Zeb Taylor at third base rounds out the War Eagles infield.

Seniors Redmond, Conner Holmes, Drew Webber, and Owen McAleenan are outfielders.

Among those players, many are top hitters. Senior Designated hitter Trey Craig, who is still recovering from an ankle injury in football, is batting .436 with 17 hits and a team-high five doubles and two home runs. Holmes, with a .425 average, also has 17 hits and five doubles. Redmond has a .526 average with 10 hits, and Hornsby is batting .464 with 13 hits.

With a region title already in hand and a schedule that will challenge his team, Assey says he hopes for good things to come, specifically the possibility of going one or two games further than the lower state championship tournament in 2023 and the state championship series in which Gray fell short to 2A state champion Andrew Jackson.

“I’m in my 28^th year of doing it,” said Assey, who won state championships at Brookland-Cayce as well as with Orangeburg Prep and Mims Academy. “I still have my health and over the past couple of years I got my 500^th win, but I always want to try to win one more. It puts my feet on the floor in the morning. It’s been a good ride.”

Gray Collegiate softball, which won its first state championship in 2022, is 15-2 counting four forfeits. Aspen Boulware leads the team at the plate with a .692 batting average, 18 hits, four triples and six home runs and 6 runs batted in. Maddox Long has a .526 average on top of 10 hits and nine RBI. Kaylan Boudreau is batting .455 with 10 hits, two home runs and six RBI. Na'Veah Matthews has a .387 average on 12 hits with 7 RBIs and 9 runs.

Peyton Hendrix (3-0) and Mackenzie Mathis (2-0) are the top pitchers, with Hendrix giving up just five hits and striking out 22, and Mathis giving up 11 hits and striking out 30.