The 2023 season for the McCallie Blue Tornado was not one that ended the way it did for Tim Costo's squad a year prior where they won a Division II-AA State Title.
This year ended with a bit of frustration and disappointment for everyone involved with the program as they fell 6-5 in their opening round game to Lipscomb Academy (who they beat last year to win the State Title) and then dropped a heartbreaking 1-0 game against CPA as they faced former MLB Cy-Young Award winning pitcher, R.A. Dickey's son.
"I've been frustrated the last few days just because I didn't expect it to end that way," head coach, Tim Costo said on Thursday's edition of Inside High School Sports. "I don't know if we expected to win state, but we certainly expected to win a game or so. It was frustrating for the kids, I was disappointed for them, especially our seniors."
The team will be losing nine seniors from its roster...
- Sebastian Leinberger
- Hudson Calhoun
- Benjamin Propes
- Grayson Smith
- Reece Jordan
- Wallace Gibson
- Parker Davidson
- Ethan Crump
- Olin Johnson
Their three top pitchers are heading onto play for major DI programs. Olin Johnson is heading to North Carolina, Hudson Calhoun will be playing for Ole Miss, and Grayson Smith is going to be heading to Gainesville to play for Florida.
So, what's on the horizon for this program moving forward? Coach Costo said he's very excited about Briggs Martin getting an opportunity at shortstop next year (he'll be a senior), senior Hayden Choate will have a role somewhere on the diamond, four-year varsity player Nolan Sergeant, and he'll have a senior catcher behind the dish in Zach Porter who's proven to be a great leader.
Costo also made special mention of rising sophomore, Noah Wilson, "Hits from the left side, he's just this weird talent we haven't seen in a long time. He's hopefully going to be in every pitch of every inning next year probably in centerfield. I don't know where he's going to be, but the kid can hit, fastest kid in our program, and he's just got that baseball IQ."
The Blue Tornado will have to find a way to replace their three main starters on the mound but Costo's confident he's got a couple of guys who will rise to the occasion in upcoming junior Nolan Bernard who throws upper 80's with what he called, "a big-league curveball" along with Christopher Moore who's already committed to Virginia Tech.
We'll see what happens at McCallie in 2024 but Tim Costo's going to make sure he puts these guys in the best possible position to be successful and it seems like there'll be plenty of health competition next year.