By Mike London

Salisbury Post

LANDIS — The pitch to South Rowan senior Conner Coy is a good one, outside corner, probably a strike, and if the medium-sized right-handed hitter tries to pull it, it’s going to be a ground ball to the shortstop.

But he will not try to pull it.

Coy not only is blessed with a wonderfully short, alliterative baseball name, he learned early in life the value of using the entire field. There is no great way to defend against Coy, and he is going to put the bat on the ball 95 percent of the time.

“Hit it where it’s pitched and try to hit it hard,” Coy said. “That’s the approach. I’m not going to hit many home runs, but I hit line drives.”

Coy is 5-foot-10, 160 pounds, so he has never dropped the jaws of scouts and recruiters. You would not pick him out of the South cafeteria as one of the school’s baseball standouts. The sight of Coy stepping off a bus, doesn’t make opponents shiver the way they do when the get their first look at A.L. Brown’s CJ Gray or East Rowan’s Harrison Ailshie, but he is an exceptional high school hitter.

Coy turned that outside-corner pitch from a Carson Cougar last Friday into a missile headed for the right-field corner. That’s a double for most high school players, but the hit gave Coy a chance to show off another part of his game. Even though he is primarily a catcher, he is quick on the bases — under 7 seconds for 60 yards — and that opposite-field smash became his first triple of the season.

Coy is South’s lead-off man. Through South’s first 12 games, he has kept his batting average above .500 in a challenging league filled with recruitable arms and his on-base percentage north of .600. He understands his job is to get on base for the Raiders, to set the table for good at-bats behind him, but he sees leading off as a role that goes far beyond just getting on base a high percentage of the time.

“Being the first batter for us, I’ve got a chance to give the team a spark of energy right away,” Coy said. “The lead-off batter has a responsibility to set the tone, especially against the tough pitchers. I remember a game last year when we were facing a really good arm from Northwest Cabarrus (Campbell recruit Dalton Hazlett) and I started off the game with a double off the wall. That gave us confidence. I wound up going 3-for-3, so that probably was my best game of the season.”

When Coy was a freshman in 2022, the Raiders were loaded with future college standouts such as Kane Kepley, Nathan Chrismon, Ty Hubbard and Haiden Leffew. The Raiders won 30 games and the 3A state championship.

Coy actually got to be a small part of that as he was moved up to the varsity for the playoffs after the jayvee season ended. Coy made an out in his only varsity at-bat that season, but he made contact. He drove in a run.

“The most memorable thing about those playoffs was being sent in as a pinch-runner at first base,” Coy said. “Then we hit one one of those fly balls where it was hard to tell if it was going to fall in or not. It fell. I guess it was nerves, but I slipped and did a face-plant. Fortunately, I was able to get up and I was safe at second base, so I can joke about it now.”

Nerves and face-plants were behind Coy by the time he was a sophomore. South still had Cole Thomas, the backup catcher on the championship team, available for duty behind the plate, so Coy played second base, a position where he is just as comfortable as he is behind the plate.

“I think catchers are the hardest thing to find when you’re playing youth baseball, so if they asked if I could play there, I’d always say yes and I learned to like catching,” Coy said. “But I’m also fine playing second base, and I believe I could learn to be a good outfielder if that’s where a team needed me to play. I’ve always just wanted to be on the baseball field somewhere. Wherever a coach told me to go, I went there without any complaints. All I’ve ever cared about was being in the lineup.”

The toughest kids often wind up as catchers, and that’s where Coy has settled in. He was All-South Piedmont Conference and All-Rowan County as South’s catcher in 2024, and there’s not much doubt he can repeat those accolades.

Coy credits South volunteer coach Adam Patterson with helping him improve his catching skills. Patterson starred at West Rowan and for Rowan County American Legion back in the 1990s and went on to play college ball for Pfeiffer and Catawba.

South (8-4, 5-3) lost a tough 2-1 South Piedmont Conference game at Lake Norman Charter on Tuesday — Coy had two hits and drove in the run — but the Raiders look to be quite a bit better this season than they were during a rebuilding 2023 or in a somewhat improved 2024. They have a good chance for a winning season and to get back to the 3A state playoffs.

“The playoffs are always the goal,” Coy said. “And we have the team that can do that.”

Coy plays a lot of baseball. He played for the Charlotte Baseball Academy to gain exposure during the recruiting process. He devotes his summers to the Kannapolis American Legion team and plans to play for them again this year, which is not great news for the rest of Area III.

Pfeiffer saw Coy playing with Charlotte Baseball Academy during an evaluation camp/tournament, and eventually gained a commitment from an under-the-radar athlete who could become a serious steal for the Falcons.

“Pfeiffer coaches talked to me right after that camp and they started recruiting me,” Coy said. “I enjoyed it when I visited there and toured the campus. Pfeiffer was really an ideal school for me because I didn’t want to go far away. I wanted my grandfather to be able to see my games.”

Coy’s grandfather, Mark Kimball, has always been his biggest supporter and advocate. Kimball drove him all over the place to play in tournaments when Coy was younger. He is Coy’s mentor, and in some ways, despite the generation gaps, his best friend. They hunt and fish together.

Coy’s baseball breaks came in the winter, as he swam for the Raiders, along with several of his baseball teammates.

“When I started swimming, I was looking at it as just a good way to stay in shape for baseball, but swimming for the school turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made,” Coy said. “I had a tremendous amount of fun in the sport because of the people I got to swim with.”

Coy was very solid for a seasonal swimmer. In this year’s Rowan County Championships, he had a third (50 freestyle) and fourth (100 breaststroke) in individual events and helped the Raiders place second and third in two relays. He competed at the regional level in the relays.

Coy lists snowboarding as a hobby, but he’s basically baseball 24/7. He’s a throwback who loves to play the game and plays it the right way. He plays it all-out, and he plays it head-first.

He plans to room at Pfeiffer with Jackson Lancaster, a Northwest Cabarrus outfielder who is one of his American Legion teammates, and plans to major in exercise science.

As far as what position he might play for Pfeiffer, he doesn’t worry about that.

“I’ll play anywhere that gets me on the field,” Coy said.