HAMPTON ROADS — Virginia Peninsula Community College baseball is ready to hit the diamond. Ahead of Sunday’s home opener, members of Gators Baseball sat down with WYDaily to discuss the 2025 season.
Today, meet pitcher Wilson Estep.
Estep, a graduate of Walsingham Academy, enters his second season with the Gators. While at Walsingham, Estep earned the record for most saves.
“I eat, sleep, and breathe baseball. I come from a winning culture at Walsingham and that’s what I want to bring here to VPCC. We want to beat some teams up and go out there and win,” Estep said.
During the 2024 season, Estep pitched 31 innings, allowing one home run. He recorded six strikeouts per game and a 1.72 WHIP while appearing in 16 games in his freshman campaign.
Looking back on the 2024 campaign, Estep recalled the push to win, but not knowing how.
“We’d come back in games but it would be too little, too late. We’re trying to change that this year. We felt like we left a lot on the table last year and we want to capitalize on all of it this year,” Estep said.
As the 2025 season gets underway, Estep says the Gators have unfinished business.
“We’re playing with house money. This is a school that hasn’t seen a lot of Ws and we want to bring them a title this year. This is the first year that we all feel like a title is a possibility,” Estep said.
One of the games that Estep is looking forward to is the opportunity to get some revenge on Camp Community College.
“We feel like Camp ducked us last year. We played really close at their place early on in the season, we had our left hand tied behind our back, but we kept up with them blow for blow. The second series comes around, Camp wins the nine-inning game on Saturday in pretty close fashion, and then we came out with an absolute pitching gem, and we won 2-1 in the seven-inning game,” he explains.
“We took our stuff out to them but because of rain, the game was called off. There’s some unfinished business there. We’re the only two teams in Virginia in our conference and it’s all about who wants the bragging rights of the state more. They hate us, we hate them, it’s like that Yankees/Red Sox rivalry. If we have a target on anyone’s back this year, it’s Camp,” Estep added.
Overall, Estep hopes to finish 2025 above .500 and with a championship ring.
“Whether that championship comes in a regular season championship where we’re number one in the conference, we win the conference tournament, we want to play deep into May and we want to go as far as we can. I think we can do it this year with the group of guys that we have,” Estep said.
VPCC will host the College of Southern Maryland at War Memorial Stadium for a doubleheader on Feb. 9. For more information on VPCC Baseball, visit vpccgators.com.