Nansemond River High School senior Gage Williams has committed to play college baseball at Longwood University.

It has been an interesting recruiting process for the rising senior.

Last year, before his junior season, he committed to play college baseball at Virginia Tech. But after a change to the Tech coaching staff, Williams re-opened the recruiting process after a year of being committed.

After de-committing from Tech, Williams began hearing back from schools that had wanted him before his previous commitment.

He narrowed his choices down to Longwood, George Mason University, James Madison University, University of North Carolina at Wilmington and East Carolina University, ultimately choosing Longwood, the first school that contacted him after he tweeted out that he was no longer going to attend Tech.

Williams said he appreciates the Longwood coaches for standing by him even after he didn’t commit there the first time around.

“The coaches really stuck with me,” Williams said. “They were constantly in contact with me and were the first to reach out after I announced I was re-opening my recruitment.”

Now that he is heading into his last year of high school, Williams feels like it was the right time to make his decision. Longwood had been watching him for more than a year.

“They still felt the same way about me now that they did from the start,” he said. “It just felt like the right school for me. The coaches were very excited to hear I was making their program home.”

The fact that the Warriors have so many players doing well in college or preparing to play in college shows how much talent the program has. Though Nansemond River didn’t have a strong season this spring, they did bring home a 5A state championship in 2016.

“It all shows a lot about what kind of program we run,” Williams said. “They are all top of the line and work their hardest to develop us for college.”

At Longwood, Williams plans to major in business.