Midseason review: Rock Hill SC’s Piedmont Pride excel in first half of baseball season
The Piedmont Pride finds itself in first place as the Southern Collegiate Baseball League enters into the second half of its season.
Head coach Joe Hudak’s team is 10-3 thus far and a half-game ahead of the second place Carolina Vipers. The Pride is riding a four-game winning streak, and Hudak, the former Winthrop baseball coach who’s now in the school’s Hall of Fame, likes the overall play of this year’s team, he said.
“I am very pleased with what we have done thus far,” said Hudak. “We started with a six-game winning streak, and then we lost three. We have regrouped to win the last four.”
Here’s what you need to know.
Piedmont Pride stats
The Pride has several players to compile some impressive statistics in the first 13 contests of the season.
Infielder Adam Grob has the top batting average thus far at .351. Catcher Hayden Cross is just behind him at .350. Phillip Glassser, who plays in the infield, is hitting .333, while infielder Ben Wetenhall has a .317 mark.
Infielder Tanner McCallister leads the team in home runs with two. Wetenhall is the top man in runs batted in with nine. Grob follows with seven, while McCallister and outfielder Kale Rhame have six each.
In the pitching department, right-hander Dawson Gause has been the most impressive. He leads the Pride in wins with three, and he hasn’t given up an earned run yet this season. Gause also leads the team in strikeouts with 22.
Austin Morgan has notched two wins thus far. He has recorded 20 strikeouts on the year. Willie Lumpkin and Carmen Miller have also performed well thus far. Lumpkin sports a 0.73 ERA and has 15 strikeouts, while Miller has a 1.65 ERA and 17 strikeouts.
Hudak stressed it has been a solid team effort thus far.
“We do not rely on just one player; we have had key hits from many different players to help us win games,” Hudak said. “We have good players from top to bottom of the lineup on offense, and we have a solid overall pitching staff. The players have each other’s backs, and we have gelled quickly into a good team.”
The Pride has a team batting average of .249, which is second best in the league. Their pitching ERA is 2.57, which is the best in the league.
Rest of the SCBL season
The Pride has five more games on the card for the week. After a Monday morning contest at the Carolina Vipers, they play on the road on Tuesday in another 11 am game against the Carolina Venom.
On Wednesday, the Pride host the Concord Athletics at Truist Field in Charlotte, normally the home of the minor league’s Charlotte Knights and where the Pride will play all of its home games this season. The first pitch is set for noon. Friday’s schedule shows a 5 p.m. contest in Charlotte against the Lake Norman Copperheads. They complete the week on Saturday at home with a 7 p.m. game against the Mooresville Spinners.
“The key for us going forward is to be ready to play every time we go to the diamond. We have shown that thus far,” added Hudak. “I take what we are doing very seriously, and the players have also taken that attitude. They just need to keep working together and keep believing in each other.”
The correct attitude going forward is extremely important for Hudak.
“We have worked hard thus far,” he added. “We have gotten to the point where we expect to win, and we are disappointed if we do not win.”