Welcome to the 2024 Potomac State Baseball player diary homepage. This season, Sophomores Ben McDougal (Bridgeport High School / Bridgeport, WV), and Kris Sutton (Cobb County High School / Calhoun, GA) will take the lead on the Potomac State Baseball Player Diary.
Hello, Catamount fans and welcome back to this week’s edition of the 2024 Potomac State Baseball Player Diary. Coming this week is a behind-the-scenes look of a tour of the baseball facility, Athletic training room, weight room media day, sledding, and a day in the life of Will “Willy” Thompson (Madison, WV).
First, we start off with a facility tour. WE are so fortunate to have 1st class facilities that we use on a daily basis. For a school our size- we would put or facilities up against anyone else in the country at the JUCO level. The Potomac State Baseball Performance Center (BPC) is where pitchers ramp up for the spring on cold or rainy days. For hitters, the BPC is open all day long so when guys have free time, they can go get extra work in or even just come down and hang out with the guys in the clubhouse. After a tour of the BPC a couple of the guys show off our amazing clubhouse, Bryce Suters (Broadway, VA) shows how our clubhouse is set up for our 40 players. While going around the clubhouse Kris Sutton gives a tour of our newly expanded clubhouse with the addition of the kitchen. The kitchen is a huge bonus to the clubhouse for multiple reasons such as having a refrigerator to store water. Our amazing full-time athletic trainer Carita Mills storing the cabinets with great snacks for games or practice, and even having a microwave for making quick snacks in. The last part in the clubhouse is our mud room that’s where all of the team-issued Nike cleats are stored on shelves by your number so we don’t track mud in the locker room a huge bonus of the mud room is it is connected right to the dugout so it’s easily a huge advantage if you ever need something from the locker room while the guys are out on the field. Lastly, we show off the Lough Gymnasium weight room and athletic training room.
Media day is something that gets the team excited and brings energy to the clubhouse. I mean, who doesn’t want to look good? Media day has a strict process, the way media day goes here is whatever group of pitchers are throwing that day and the catchers get to go first. It starts by everyone going in numerical order starting from number one to fifty-six. It sounds like a complicated process, but it runs like a well-oiled machine. We must get a headshot for the team website and then we have the option of getting a couple of action shots for our own personal use. I must give a huge shoutout and thanks to our team photographer Mr. Raymond Burner, he puts in countless hours taking our pictures and editing them so we can look our best. We are lucky to have him as part of our program and his photos add a big-league component to what we do at Potomac State Baseball.
Sledding days are a big plus for the baseball guys here at Potomac State with just the hill being right next to the clubhouse. As you see in this week’s video you see a couple of the guys taking advantage of our snow day as Maddox Brooks (Waynesboro, PA), Andrew Sokol (Rostraver,PA), and Kris Sutton (Calhoun, GA) take on the hill. If you need a good laugh watch these guys have some extreme wipeouts on the hill.
The newest edition of the Player Diary is a day in the life of a player, this week it is Will Thompson. Will is one of a handful of players that lives off campus. His home away from home has become a hangout for players between classes and for movie nights. Willy starts his day off by having a homemade breakfast. With a surprise snowfall over the night, Willy must shovel snow out of the ‘Baseball House’ driveway. After clearing most of the driveway, Willy had a bit of bad luck when his Dollar Store shovel lived it last life. The guys, however, figure out a little trick up their sleeves and put salt on the driveway to make the ice melt faster. Later in the day, a little lift at a new gym here in Keyser called 304 fitness. To end off with Will dinner is made and a couple of the guys are hanging around at the baseball house. Special guest “Potomac State's biggest fan” Hank the Wiener Dog is presented to us by Gage Bibey (Belington, WV).
Thanks for reding and be sure to watch the video for the week below and on the Potomac State Baseball YouTube page. Hope to see you next week for an update on the lives of your favorite JUCO baseball team.