After ‘remarkable’ first mission trip, this Rock Hill summer baseball team isn’t done
Piedmont Pride has made an impact outside of Rock Hill for years. And the summer of 2021 has been no exception.
This summer, the Pride — a faith-based summer baseball team in Rock Hill — has planned two mission trips. The first was a 17-day trip to the Dominican Republic. It concluded late last week. The second started this past Monday, when the team flew to Alaska to start a 13-day excursion.
The first trip of this year? Fantastic, Pride head coach and founder Joe Hudak told The Herald.
“This was the 13th trip to the Domincan Republic,” he said in a phone interview this past weekend. “It was probably our best ever.”
The veteran coach cited more time to focus on mission work, help with projects in the villages and interact with the children in the country as the reasons for that assessment.
The Pride has played in the Southern Collegiate Baseball League the last six years and won a league title in three of the last four seasons. But this summer, they had a change in the normal routine. Hudak said the change was necessary because COVID-19 hindered the fundraising required to put on a league team.
But taking mission trips has always been part of the Pride’s purpose, Hudak said.
“The players loved spending time with the kids. The few who went last year were excited when the kids in the orphanages remembered them,” Hudak said. He added, “They are all ready to go again. Watching them interact with all of the kids was remarkable, and we did a lot of work in the villages.”
Hudak said that every day in the Dominican Republic his team either visited an orphanage, visited a village, or helped do some work in the village. The players found time to play some baseball, too, and did rather well — winning four games and tying the other: All of the major league teams have teams in the Dominican Republic, so they can develop young players for their minor league system as well as the major league team. The Pride registered wins against teams affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Mets, in addition to two academies in the country.
The Pride, as per usual, is good this year: Prior to the first trip, the teams played eight games against teams from the SCBL. They went 6-2, and felt they were ready for the next set of games that would come in a normal season, Hudak said.
Piedmont Pride’s next mission trip: Alaska
The Pride returned home last week, and they are currently in Alaska doing mission work and playing baseball.
“This part of the trip will be much different,” said Hudak before they departed. “It was in the nineties in the Dominican Republic. It will be in the mid-sixties in Alaska.”
The Pride has eight games scheduled in Alaska against some college teams, but there will be plenty of time spent on the mission work.
“These players are looking forward to that part of the trip because of the experiences they had in the Dominican Republic,” he added. “We have never done a mission trip to Alaska.”
Two of the players on the 16-man roster for the Pride have Rock Hill connections. Jordan Thurmond is from Rock Hill and is currently playing his collegiate baseball at USC-Sumter. Tyler Baker, who is from Gaston, is playing at Winthrop.
“All of our players enjoyed the first part of the summer experience,” Hudak said before the team departed up north. “They are all looking forward to Alaska.”
Piedmont Pride players on the trip
Tyler Baker (Winthrop University); Sam Blancato (Georgia Southern University); Patrick Brogan (California University of Pennsylvania); Hayden Cross (Appalachian State University); Reece Fields (North Greenville University); Emmanuel Johnson (Liberty University); Scottie Lee (Mars Hill University); Abraham Mow (Slippery Rock University); Seth Owens (Charleston Southern University); Levi Parker (Columbia International University); Justin Stewart (California University of Pennsylvania); Jared Szabo (Georgia Southern University); Andrew Terrell (Appalachian State University); Jordan Thurmond (USC-Sumter); Kody Trujillo (Columbia International University); Ben Wetenhall (College of Charleston).
