61 attend annual Tri-Cats camp

Published 9:30 am Thursday, July 6, 2017

The 10th-annual Tri-Cats Baseball Camp featured 61 kids from ages 6-15. The camp was held June 20-23 at Rich Park. Coaches Bobby Byerly, Danny Allard, Jamey Holt, Mike Dinkins and Dan Tricarico worked out the youngsters for two and a half hours each day.

College players who assisted were Ross Hoffner, Paul Davenport and Colby Cranfill. Recent Davie High graduates Chris Reynolds, Tyler Roberts, Beau Byerly, McKay Chamberlain and Zach Hudspeth helped out, along with high schoolers Aaron Williams, Jake Campbell, Michael Shelton and Hunter Bowles.

Julie Holt was valuable as camp mom.

At the end of the fourth day, Byerly handed out three awards. Corbin Angus, 10, won best defensive award.

“He could have gotten any of the awards because he shined at all levels,” Byerly said. “One, he sprinted everywhere. He would have gotten the hustle award if we’d had an award for that. He’s always smiling. He always was very coachable. If we told him to do a certain thing, he always did it and didn’t question it. He stuck out because he made a couple of great plays defensively in drills.”

Brady Willard, 7, took home the award for best offense.

“We were in hitting stations,” Byerly said. “All the big boys were in the station behind him, which means they’re shagging. On first contact, he drove them backward. It was like six straight where he drove the big guys – I’m talking the 15-year-olds – back. I mean he toasted them. He was all pumped. He showed signs of being a really good contact hitter.”

Jackson “Tache” Jennings, 6, earned the golden spikes award.

“Every day he either had Gatorade with him or he’d drink it out of our cooler,” Byerly said. “Whenever he got done, he always had a mustache. All the high-school boys found nicknames for all of them. They would say: ‘Come on, Tache.’ And he would go with them just a grinning. He had the best character of anybody out there. We were playing games the last day, and he came up just short on a couple of them, and he would say: ‘Rats.’ Then he’d go to the back of the line and try again. He would just grin and grin and grin. He was like that every day. He just smiled at everything. He had the best attitude about everything. It was unanimous- all the instructors voted for Tache to win that award.”