‘As far as baseball goes, this is probably the top’

Cam Cannarella. PHOTO BY BOBBY BRYANT

Coach Tony Gainey. PHOTO BY BOBBY BRYANT

By Bobby Bryant, Editor

editor@newsandpress.net

It’s been a sweet and sour season for Hartsville High School head baseball coach Tony Gainey. The Red Foxes’ season ended with one player testing positive for COVID-19, sidelining the rest of the team and forcing the team to forfeit a playoff against Airport High School. “Me and COVID are not friends,” Gainey said. “We really feel like we got cheated.” But on the other hand … the S.C. Baseball Coaches Association named one of the team’s players, junior Cam Cannarella, the co-player of the year for all classifications. He has also been named an All-State selection and the Class 4A State Player of the Year. “As far as baseball goes, this (SCBCA award) is probably the top,” Gainey said. Cannarella, 17, just puts it like this: “It means a lot to me.” “Anytime you get a kid that works as hard as Cam does, and gets the job done, and produces, and leads the team in about every offensive category, plus on the mound, as a pitcher, it means a lot. It really does,” said Gainey. “He’ll be the first one to tell you he can’t do it by himself.” “To put up the numbers he put up,” Gainey said, “is pretty impressive.” Some of those numbers include: Pitching: A 6-0 record with a 0.15 ERA, allowing only one run the entire regular season. Hitting: Batting average .444 Field percentage: .986 and committing only two errors all season Cannarella says he has been playing baseball since he was 3. What makes the game special? “My teammates. They’re always there for me. When I’m down, they always pick me up. I like everything about the game.” “He has a lot of fun at what he does,” Gainey said. “When you can mix having fun and working hard, that’s a unique talent.” Cannarella still has his senior year to play for the Red Foxes, and the colleges are likely to come calling, maybe as early as this summer. He’s already thinking about the University of South Carolina, Clemson University, Francis Marion University and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Author: Stephan Drew

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