Warrior baseball honored
Published 11:04 pm Friday, June 3, 2016
Matt Holt swings during a Nansemond River game earlier this season. Holt was one of four players selected to first team all-PenSouth Conference from Nansemond River.
The Nansemond River High School baseball team saw five players receive PenSouth Conference 10 honors, and one of them was named Player of the Year.
Matt Holt, Dion Jordan, Nick Lees, Michael Blanchard and Johnny Mayer all received Conference team honors for the 2016 season.
Matt Holt, Dion Jordan, Nick Lees and Michael Blanchard made first team, and Johnny Mayer made second. Blanchard received the Player of the Year honor.
Coach Mark Stuffel said all of his players were deserving of the honors.
“I’ll take my nine over anybody,” said Stuffel. “I told them congratulations, and everybody on the team was clapping for them.”
The Warriors are having a successful season, with a record of 16-7. The team has advanced to the finals of the regional tournament.
Stuffel describes all of his players as having the same type of characteristics and mentality.
“They’re all solid players,” he said. “They’re all good players. Our whole group is good but they can only pick a few kids from our team.”
Stuffel was elated at Blanchard’s selection as Player of the Year.
“He is very deserving of the player of the year, because he has done it for us on the mound and he’s been lights out,” Stuffel said.
When speaking on Blanchard’s season, Stuffel brought up his performance against Grassfield High school, where he had 10 strikeouts.
“Grassfield is a top team in the nation that just got ranked, and Mike threw a complete game,” Stuffel said. “It was just a very good game, and Mike was very good that night.”
Stuffel describes Blanchard as quiet kid but a leader on the field and a leader on the mound.
“Everybody voted for him,” Stuffel said. “There wasn’t a coach in the room that didn’t vote for him.”
Coach Stuffel realizes he had an amazing team this year, and being that all of these players are seniors, he understands that his team will be different when these players are gone.
“I think we will be OK next year, but we won’t have a team like we had this year,” he said. “We had 11 seniors, and all of them are very good players, and all of them have helped the team so much this year.”
