Marty Gordon
NRVsports@ourvalley.org
Williamson photo_ Reece Williamson slides safely into third base during a game against Parry McCluer.
Radford High School will host Auburn in a baseball game this afternoon that will decide the Three Rivers District race. Radford has won six of the last eight games, but one of those was a loss to Auburn.
But both teams seem primed for a collision course in both the conference and regional tournament.
A big key in a possible win for the Bobcats could be the play of senior Reece Williamson who has been on fire this season. In his last game against Parry McCluer, Williamson was five for five at the plate with six RBIs and has been a spark on the mound this season.
Williamson leads the team with a .509 batting average and 16 RBIs.
His success might have been written in stone somewhere even dating to his time on a Radford T-ball field.
His coach, Greg Ridpath, has nothing but praise for Williamson. “He is leading our team in almost every statistical category, and he is the heart and soul of this team. When he is on the mound, I feel like it’s a game that we should win.”
After being moved up to varsity as a freshman, he has been locked in ever since. “I always tried to pick up on some of things the older kids did, and coming into my last year I just want to play the best I can,” he said.
This year, Williamson is getting more starts and innings so his pitching has shown lots of improvement.
From the rubber, he has a 2-1 record. When not pitching, he plays first base where he has not committed an error all year. He also has two homeruns and 28 hits at 55 bats.
Williamson and his coach remain very optimistic about finishing the season strong and pushing deep into the postseason playoffs.
“We’ve got a real good shot this season to do well, but we have to put all the pieces together for a run,” Ridpath said.
“I think we can go really far in the tournament this year. My sophomore year we made state semis and I think we really didn’t have a weakness that year and this years the same everybody knows their position, and Justice Marshall has really added to our team this year catching,” Williamson said.
Marshall, who ironically is a freshman, is Williamson’s battery mate and has provided the Bobcats with a very reliable one-two punch.
“There are pretty good,” Ridpath said. “Together, they make a very good battery.”
Following graduation, Williamson plans to hang up his cleats but there remains an outside shot he might put them back on down the road.
“I think this is gonna be my last year playing. I’m going to go to NRCC for instrumentation and electrical engineering, and I still haven’t decided if I want to play at New River yet,” he said.
The Bobcats will play three games in three days this week to finish out the season before preparing for next week’s conference tournament which is slated to be played at Auburn High School.