CARROLLTON - Five months after officially committing to play at the college level, Carrollton Hawks pitching ace, Gabe Jones signed his letter-of-intent to Quincy University to continue his baseball career.
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"It's pretty cool. It's always been a dream of my dad and I for me to play college baseball, so I'm just excited that I'm able to do that at like a school like Quincy that's a very good Division-II powerhouse. I'm just really excited," Jones said. "God gifted me with good enough talents to be able to play college baseball."
Jones was drawn to the winning consistency of the Hawks as well as their coaching staff led by Josh Rabe, who he believes will help get the most out of himself.
"It's a really, really good program," Jones said of Quincy. "They've been ranked top 10 the whole year. That persuaded me and to want to play there, and I really like the coaches. They're knowledgeable, and I think they're going to get me to my max potential."
Jones is the third Hawks pitcher in two years to sign for an NCAA baseball program joining Kolten Bottom (Illinois College) and Blake Struble (SIUE).
Being a pitcher from Carrollton, he's looked up to Sammy Coonrod, who is currently a starting pitcher for the Sacramento River Cats, the AAA affiliate of the San Francisco Giants and got to participate in Spring Training in March. Carrollton has also quickly built a connection to Quincy University in the past five years in football with the likes of Luke Palan, Jerrett Smith, and most notably Cody Leonard, who is now an NFL prospect.
"Guy's like Sammy whose done exceptionally well," Jones said. "He's playing in the big leagues now, and Cody Leonard has a shot at NFL, who went to Quincy. Thinking about those is pretty cool."
With the Hawks heading into the playoffs this week, Jones has compiled a 5-2 record with 30 innings pitched and struck out 54 batters. However, he's arguably had a better season at the plate. Before the year began, Jones downplayed his hitting ability, but he now has a .409 batting average with 36 hits, including three home runs.
This past week, Jones along with fellow seniors, Nathan Walker, and Curtis Lake notched their 100th victory in their Carrollton careers.
"We've had a great four years here at Carrollton," Jones said. "Me, Nate, and Curtis, I don't think we've ever had less than 25 wins in a season, which is really fortunate for us. A lot of kids don't get to have such a great team like that. So it's been pretty nice. That goes to show that we've had a lot of good talent here in Carrollton and it's a really good program. I'm excited to see what the younger kids do next year."
With school over with and graduation coming up, Jones isn't ready to leave Carrollton yet as he hopes to prolong the season as long as he and his teammates can. He admits it'll probably initially be hard not to have his mother do chores while he plays Fortnite around the house and not being around most of his friends, but Jones is confident he'll adjust to college life in no time.
"I'm definitely going to miss all my friends and living at home, and having mom do all the chores and cooking all of the meals and stuff," Jones said with a laugh. So that's going to be kind of a tough transition, but I think I'll get the hang of it pretty fast."
