By Pierre LaBossiere
Peninsula Daily News
Every week until the beginning of the Port Angeles Lefties season June 1, the Peninsula Daily News will be printing profiles of several Lefties players in our Meet the Lefties feature. This week, we feature athletes from as near as central Washington and as far away as Arkansas and Tennessee. Here are the profiles for Lefties Garry Hill, Ian Nowak, Mitchell Hagan, Nick Osborne, Cameron Walker and Spencer Johnson.
The Lefties are a wooden bat collegiate league team that will play in the West Coast League against teams from all around Washington, British Columbia and Oregon. It will feature college players from all around the country. The season begins June 1 in Port Angeles.
Cameron Walker
Walker is a native of Nachez and pitches and plays first base at Western Oregon University in Monmouth, Ore.
A big switch-hitter at 6-6 and 220 pounds, he was named a 2016 All-Academic All Star.
He was also the Most Outstanding Player of the 2015 Senior Babe Ruth World Series, pitching a complete game shutout in the final as his Columbia Basin River Dogs team claimed its first national crown since 1998.
Garry Hill
Hill comes to Port Angeles from Arkansas State University, where he plays outfield and pitches. The 5-9, 200-pound right-hander is originally from Monticello, Ark., and is looking forward to exploring the Pacific Northwest. Hill is a psychology major at Arkansas and the first in his family to play baseball. as a junior at Star City High School, Hill’s athleticism got him a spot on a CBS Sports highlight reel for a catch he made in a playoff game. You can follow him on Instagram at G_hill2.
Ian Nowak
Nowak joins the Lefties from UC Riverside, where he plays third and first base for coach Troy Percival. He is 6-3, 201 pounds, bats and throws right and is a native of Winchester, Calif. He is projected to a a utility player or the Lefites because he can play first, third, outfield and pitch.
In high school, Nowak was named to the Southwestern All-Star Team. Nowak is the first member of his family to attend college.
Mitchell Hagan
Hagan joins the Lefties from Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, where he pitches and plays first base. A native of Omaha, Neb., he is 6-3 and weighs 210 pounds. He was a starter as a freshman at Omaha West High School and helped lead his team to three state baseball championships.
Hagan throws left and hits with power from both sides of the plate.
He is also a football player and comes from a family of athletes — his father played tennis for the University of Nebraska, his oldest brother is an assistant tennis coach at Iowa University and another brother plays football at Northern Illinois. Hagan is consider the top first base pro prospect and fifth overall best prospect in Nebraska.
Nick Osborne
Osborne is an outfielder and pitcher at Tennessee Tech in Cookesville, Tenn. He is right-handed, 6-2 and weighs 205 pounds.
He is a pre-physical therpay major and attended Sevier County High School, where he received All-State honors in 2014 and was the 2014 Inter-Mountain Athletic Conference Player of the Year, leading his team to a conference championship. You can follow Osborne on Twitter and Intagram @ozzy12_.
Spencer Johnson
Johnson comes to Port Angeles from the University of Utah. A hard-throwing 6-5, 210-pound right-handed native of Walnut Creek, Calif., he was named to the second team All-Diablo Valley League at Northgate High School. He was also a Contra Costa Times Player of the Week after throwing a 2-0 win over the defending league champion.
Johnson’s father Craig was an all-Pac-10 player at UCLA and was a second-round draft pick by the Detroit Tigers. You can follow Johnson on Twitter at @SJohnson or Snapchat at sj_6.
