WXXV Student Athlete of the Week: Pass Christian Baseball’s Peyton Lacy
Throughout the World Baseball Classic, we saw Shohei Ohtani lead Japan to last night’s championship as one of the best hitters and pitchers on the planet.
On a much smaller scale, Peyton Lacy is having the same kind of two-way success for Pass Christian High School.
At the plate, the Southern Miss signee is hitting .356 with five home runs. On the mound, he has 61 strikeouts across 35 innings with a microscopic 1.37 ERA.
Growing up, Peyton Lacy never really had to wonder what sport he could play because he’s a lifetime member of the Lacy Legacy. “My grandma has four sons. They all play baseball… my cousin Gabe plays baseball, so it’s all I ever knew. So, I played tee ball and I fell in love with it. It’s all I ever wanted to do.”
Lacy is a senior right-handed pitcher and shortstop from Pass Christian and he truly gives everything he has to the game of baseball.
Equipped with a slider, change up, and a slurve in his arsenal, his primary focus is now velocity. “My freshman through sophomore/junior year I was in the weight room a little bit. I got a membership, but I couldn’t really drive, but this year I really had nothing to do. Like baseball is all I do so I went to the gym literally every night and I was like I have to throw hard. That’s all I want to do.”
Someone that’s had a front row seat watching his transformation into a Division I athlete is Pass Christian Head Coach Ricky Smith. “It’s been really fun to watch him grow. I had him as an eighth grader, a skinny little eighth grader, and he didn’t really know what was going on and how his body worked and as he’s gotten older, he’s just been a workhorse for us, and he’s gotten better each and every year, and he’s our leader. There’s no doubt about that, but he leads in the classroom, he leads with the stuff we do around the community, and he leads on the field.”
Being a leader, it would be easy to take all the credit for himself, but instead, Lacy gives it all to something much bigger than himself. “Every at bat I think of the same verse, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, and last night before that at bat I actually kind of forgot to do it the first couple times. The first time I got out and the second time I walked and then that at bat I remembered it and I was like I got this, and hit it over the fence to tie the game. That was probably the best moment I’ve had ever.”
That strength leading him to the phone call of his dreams as just a ninth grader. On the other end was an offer to play for the University of Southern Mississippi. “He’s like I think you’d love it there and we used to go up to the games all the time and it’s very close. We used to go up there and I was like this place is awesome I want to go here, and it’s just closer. My grandma can go see me, my mom, dad. They can make the trip up. It’s an hour and a half. It’s awesome, I love it.”
But no need to rush towards graduation just yet because his senior season is only getting started, currently in first place in Region 8 Class 4A. Coach Smith said, “There has been a lot of expectations. We’ve built our program over the last five years for this year primarily, and he’s been the leader of our senior class and our seniors have been the leaders of our team, so watching him and that group grow and embrace that role of leadership and carrying these younger guys, it’s been exciting to watch because I get to just step back and enjoy the show really.”
Lacy and the Pirates still have unfinished business with a goal of making history as the first-ever senior class to win a district title. He says his team is up to the task.
