All Warhill senior Blake Otey wants to do next year is play baseball.
With interest from both Marymount University and Ferrum College, Otey found it comforting to have options. When it came time to make a decision between the two schools, he chose the one that felt closest to home.
“I like living in the country,” said Otey, who grew up in the Norge area.
After visiting Ferrum College, located in rural Franklin County, last weekend to watch the Panthers’ home game against Piedmont College, Otey was sold.
“I just liked [Ferrum’s] campus much better because Marymount is right near Washington D.C. [in Arlington],” Otey said. “And Coach [Ryan] Brittle was really cool. It just felt more like home there.”
Otey, who was a key member of the Lions’ 2013 team that reached the Group AA state tournament for the first time in school history, becomes the second Bay Rivers District pitcher to commit to Ferrum this season along with Grafton senior Gray Harris.
Otey’s path to garnering interest among college coaches and recruiters was not easy.
As a sophomore playing behind now collegiate pitchers Teddy West and Trevor Otey, his older brother, appearances on the hill came few and far between for Blake.
He was poised to earn a spot in the rotation as a junior before a back injury kept him on the bench for nearly all of the regular season.
When he got his chance late in the season, though, he made the most of it — especially in the playoffs.
Despite being limited to only 24.2 innings, Otey finished last spring with a 4-1 record, 3.14 earned run average and 32 strikeouts.
His fondest memory, he said, was pitching the Lions past New Kent in the district tournament championship game. His biggest triumph of the season though came a week later when he pitched five shutout innings with nine strikeouts against Culpeper in the region championship.
Both the district and region titles were the first in school history for Warhill.
“We had guys like Brummy [Michael Brumfield] and Blake Wills, sure, but you could make the case that we wouldn’t have accomplished what we did last year without Botey [Otey’s clubhouse nickname] overcoming that injury to take the bump for us,” Warhill Coach Joe Henzel said.
Otey said he is looking forward to playing at the level, but said although Warhill is struggling through a rebuilding season this spring, he is enjoying his final semester as a high school student. He intends to play summer ball with American Legion Post 39 before heading to Ferrum.
