Kingstree – Prior to his team’s high school baseball game against Carolina Academy on Tuesday, Williamsburg Academy head coach Tyler Boyd couldn’t be much happier with his team.
“We’ve been about as good as we can be,” Boyd said.
That’s because the Stallions were off to a 9-0 start. You can make that 10-0 now and 1-0 in SCISA Region 2-AAA after a 12-0 road win over Carolina.
And that type of game has been more the norm than the exception. Williamsburg has scored 117 runs while allowing just 25. Six of the victories have come by 10 or more runs. The Stallions scored in double figures in seven of the games, while the pitching staff spun shutouts in four of the games.
Williamsburg is trying to get back to a state championship for the fourth consecutive season. The Stallions won the AA state title in 2021 over Pee Dee Academy before losing to the Eagles in ’22. Both schools moved up to AAA last year and again played for the state title with Pee Dee winning.
Williamsburg reached the title series last year despite finishing with a 16-13 overall record. Boyd felt the Stallions never really got into a groove at the plate last season.
“The biggest difference for us this year is that we’ve been so much better offensively,” Boyd said. “Last year we never really hit the ball as well as I thought we would. I think I may have overscheduled last year. I wanted us to face tough pitching so we’d be ready for the playoffs, so we had a very difficult schedule.”
Williamsburg is getting great hitting up and down the lineup. Senior first baseman Blake Hedrick has the highest batting average at .500 and leads in runs batted in with 13. He also had three doubles and 12 runs scored.
Junior third baseman Bryce Blackburn is batting 485 and leads in total hits with 16. He has four doubles, a home run, 11 RBI and 13 runs scored. Junior rightfielder/third baseman Layton Morris has 11 hits, including five doubles and two homers. He is batting .379 and leads in runs with 20 while driving in 12 runs.
Junior leftfielder Wyatt Floyd has a .412 average with three doubles and a homer, Senior second baseman Wes Smith is batting .290 with 10 RBI and 12 runs.
Senior Conrad Balder is back at shortstop after missing all of last season due to an injury suffered in Williamsburg’s victory in the ’22 football state championship game. He is batting .346 with 14 runs.
Senior Greyson Moore plays in right when not pitching. He is batting .148 but has nine runs. Two other seniors are joining Balder and Smith up the middle with Landon Strong catching and BJ Davis in center.
Strong, who is committed to University of South Carolina Salkehatchie, is batting .167, but has a double, a triple and seven RBI. Davis is batting .188.
Other members of the team are junior leftfielder Kayden Carter (.200), sophomore second baseman Jay Kellahan (.286), senior Camden Moore (.250) and junior third baseman Luke Feagin.
The Stallions also have 53 stolen bases with each member of the team having at least one. Hedrick has 10, Smith seven, Floyd and Blackburn six apiece and Morris five.
Williamsburg’s pitching has been on fire of late. After beating Laurence Manning Academy 9-7 and Marion High School 21-9 in the first two games of the year, the Stallions have allowed just nine runs in the eight games since.
Moore and Blackburn lead the staff. Both have 3-0 win-loss records. Moore, who has offers from Coker College and Francis Marion University, has worked 14 innings with 21 strikeouts and a 2.00 earned run average. Blackburn has a 1.20 ERA and 24 strikeouts in 11 2/3 innings.
Strong has worked 7 1/3 innings and had a 1.91 ERA and one save. Morris has worked five innings with 1.40 ERA and a 1-0 record, Floyd has worked five innings with a 1-0 record and a 0.00 ERA, and Smith has worked 5 2/3 innings weith a 1-0 record and a 4.84 ERA.
Though Williamsburg has to take care of its business in the regular season, the end goal goes beyond that.
“Everyone knows what we’re wanting to accomplish,” Boyd said. “We want to get back to the state championship. We’ve come up one run short (in the third game of the championship series) the last two years. We want to win it again.”
All Rights Reserved | The High School Sports Report 1986-2021