CEDARVILLE — He’d been at or near the top of the Greene County area batting charts for most of the season. Now it’s finally official, Cedarville’s Caleb McKinion is the 2019 Greene County High School Baseball batting champion.
Through 26 games, the Cedarville Indians sophomore wound up with a .513 batting average, with 40 hits in 78 at bats.
McKinion led the Indians in doubles with nine, hits (40), runs batted in (29), on-base percentage (.573) and, of course, batting average with .513. He was second on the team in runs scored (22, behind C.J. Pahl), and third in stolen bases (7, behind Caleb Criswell’s 10 and Colby Cross’s nine).
The Ohio Heritage Conference’s batting champ was also quite a talented pitcher. In a recent Division IV sectional tournament game with Covington, McKinion struck out the first eight batters he faced. Not so consequently, he’s second in the OHC in strikeouts pitched with 68, and was third in the league in innings pitched with 55.2.
Behind McKinion in the final 2019 regular season batting average chase were: Hunter Warner of Fairborn (.485); Aydan Evans of Xenia (.457); Indians teammate Caleb Criswell (.442); Xenia’s Joey Lewis (.432); Kahlil Lettice of Fairborn (.406); Yellow Springs’ Dylan Rainey (.405); Xenia’s Blayne Dudley (.403); Yellow Springs’ Tariq Muhammad and Fairborn’s Garison Secrest (.394 each).
Area high schools eligible for the batting chase are Beavercreek, Bellbrook, Carroll, Cedarville, Fairborn, Greeneview, Legacy Christian, Xenia and Yellow Springs, because they are high schools either located within the Greene County border lines, or ones that have several student athletes from Greene County who attend their school.
For the second year, the Greene County News, and its Xenia Daily Gazette, Fairborn Daily Herald, and Beavercreek News-Current newspapers, are teaming up with the Xenia Pizza Hut location (at 354 W. Main St.) to present the area batting champions with an award for their hard work during the Spring season.
Pizza Hut general manager Brandon Beatty presented our 2018 champions — Bellbrook’s Clark and graduated Legacy Christian baseball senior Josh Rutan — with $50 Pizza Hut gift certificates last season.
Clark repeated as the County’s softball champion, and Pizza Hut presented her with $50 in gift certificates earlier this week. We’ll do a similar celebration with McKinion and his coach, Andy Pauling, in the very near future.
Congratulations to Caleb and the rest of our batting title contenders on a terrific regular season.
