3 Summit baseball players sign to play baseball at the collegiate level

Prior to the Summit High School boys baseball team traveling to Palisade and winning Region 5 in Class 4A regional tournament play this past weekend, three seniors signed with college programs.

It is no secret that this year’s Summit boys baseball team is chock full of talent, but the three collegiate signings further show the depth and athletic ability of the state-tournament-bound team.

With a total of six seniors on this year’s varsity roster, three are achieving their dream of playing baseball at the next level while Jack Schierholz will continue his football career on the gridiron at Marshall University.

Of the three baseball signees, Corey Cooper will attend University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg, Will Koll will attend Coe College and Cassius Bradford will attend Colby Community College.

All three athletes have played a major role on the team over the past two years. The trio has not only helped the team win games from the batter’s box and in the field, but the three seniors have also served as huge leaders for the team as well. 

From a performance standpoint, all three seniors top the stats sheet for the 2023 spring season. Bradford leads the team in terms of batting average with a 0.506 while Cooper and Koll quickly follow with averages of 0.438 and 0.403, respectively.

Bradford and Cooper also sit one and two on the team in terms of on-base percentage. Bradford currently has an average of 0.573 and Cooper recorded a 0.534. Cooper leads the team with four home runs and 33 runs, and Bradford takes the crown in terms of hits with a total of 40. 

Cooper has 32 hits so far this season, and Koll has 29, which means the three seniors have combined for a total of 101 hits throughout this spring season alone.

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It is because of Koll’s, Bradford’s and Cooper’s skill on the diamond, leadership in the dugout and excellence in the classroom that they now get the opportunity to continue to play baseball beyond high school.

Koll and Cooper will both get to experience playing baseball at the National Collegiate Athletics Association’s Division III level while Bradford will look to find success as part of the National Junior College Athletic Association.

Koll will spend his next chapter at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he will join the Kohawks baseball team, which went 23-17 this spring. Cooper will move to Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and join a 21-16 Pitt-Greensburg Bobcats team. Bradford will play baseball in Colby, Kansas, as part of the 14-41 Colby Community College Trojans baseball program.

At their group singing on Wednesday, May 17, at Summit High School, the trio each took time to thank their coaches, parents, family and friends for supporting them up to this point in their academic and athletic careers.

For Koll and Bradford, the two baseball players have been playing baseball in Summit County since they were young, playing on the same t-ball team, growing up alongside one another in Summit County and eventually playing alongside one another in high school.

Both Koll and Bradford view growing up alongside one another through the sport as a once-in-a-lifetime experience and can’t wait to see what the next chapter holds for one another in college.

“It is definitely cool,” Bradford said of his friendship with Koll. “We have been really good friends. We went to kindergarten together, so it is cool to share this with him — get to go through playoffs and do all this stuff with him. I am excited to get an opportunity to play. My goal has always been to play competitive baseball for as long as I can, so I am glad that I have the opportunity to keep doing that.”

“It is exciting,” Koll said. “It is a new opportunity and a new start for me. I am super excited for it. I am excited for what comes next. Nothing is guaranteed next year, so I am going to have to fight for my spot and fight for my playing time. I am excited for that. I am excited to go play baseball in a new spot and in an area where not everyone knows me.”

The Summit baseball team will conclude the season by playing in the eight-team 4A state baseball tournament for the first time in school history. On Friday, May 26, No. 12 Summit will face No. 4 Golden High School at noon at Cheyenne Mountain High School in Colorado Springs.

If Summit wins against Golden, the team will then face the winner of No. 1 Holy Family and No. 9 Lutheran later in the afternoon. With a loss, Summit will drop to the loser’s bracket, where the team will have to fight its way back in the double elimination bracket to the championship game.