The IHSAA canceled the 2020 high school Spring sports season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This ended the high school careers for 11 Center Grove baseball seniors. We are honoring these outstanding young men with this special salute. CG baseball head coach Keith Hatfield had the following praise for his seniors.
GRANT HERRON
“He was co-county player of the year his junior season. He played first for us every day and was our number one pitcher. He was going to be a big part of this year. He’s a really fun kid to be around. He’s very coachable. We are really going to miss Grant. He’s going to Bradley University and will do great things there.”
BRYCE EBLIN
“He’s the all-time runs scored record holder at CG. He would have gotten three more records this season if we had played. He started every game of his career at short except one. He’s going to go down as one of the top players in school history. He’s going to Alabama and I’m sure he’ll have a great career there.”
ALEX CHRISTIE
“Alex had improved a ton since we got him as a freshman. He was going to be on the mound for us this year. He was competing for a third base starting position. He is going to Hanover College where his dad went. He’ll continue that legacy. Alex was really fun to have in the program for four years.”
JIMMY WOLFF
“Beast mode definitely brought an intensity to our team. If we were having a sluggish practice, we could always count on him to do something to energize everybody else. He was a starter at third and DH. He had a game winning hit last year early in the season. He was the sparkplug for our team last year and probably the sparkplug this year.”
ADAM TAYLOR
“Adam started for us behind the plate last year. He was competing again this year with Anthony Smith to start behind the plate. He’s going to Franklin College. Adam, extremely hard worker and Mr. Consistency.”
ANTHONY SMITH
“Anthony is a very talented kid and continued to get stronger every year. He was going to compete for starting position behind the plate this year. He’s also going to Franklin College. He was going to be in the line-up. He was coming into his own at the plate over the winter. We were excited to see what he was going to do at the plate. He was going to be in our line-up either as a catcher or DH.”
DREW DILLON
“Drew is one of the better athletes I have ever coached, really tall and lanky kid. He hit in four different positions last year in the line-up. He did everything from play first, played left. He was going to be in the outfield for us this year and possibly play first when Grant was pitching. He’s one of those kids who’s going to work tirelessly at it. He’s going to Olney Central Community College. I’m excited to see what he does over the next couple of years.”
ALEX DEVANEY
“Alex started his sophomore year a hand-full of games. This winter you could really see the mental aspect at the plate grow. He’s an outfielder and he was going to compete for the right field starting job.”
NOLAN WOLF
“Nolan was an outfielder his first couple of years. Really good arm. He was going to compete for an outfield job again, but he was going to figure in on the mound. Last year he really came into his own on the mound. He was really fun to watch, grew and worked at it. He’s going to U Indy to pitch. His growth over the next few years will be significant.”
LUKE PIPER
“Luke actually had a zero point zero ERA as a junior. He did not give up an earned run. That’s another consistent kid we knew exactly what we were going to get out of him. If I had Luke in the bullpen, it was very comforting because I knew he was going to come in and throw strikes to get us out of an inning. He was fun to have to down there.”
ISAAC BARKDULL
“Isaac is going to Marian. He’s a kid with really good stuff on the mound. He worked on his craft tirelessly. He really wants to be a good pitcher. He had some great games for us. He arguably had the best stuff on our staff. I’m excited to see him grow over next four years.”
“This senior class had a chance to win three conference titles in a row,” Coach Hatfield adds.. “They were very talented, and we were going to win a lot of games. The biggest thing with this group was they were so much fun to be around. This winter was our best offseason since I’ve been at Center Grove. They came to work every day. They really wanted to work and were self-motivated. Great group of parents that I’m going to miss. It was really unfortunate we didn’t get to see what this team was going to do.”
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