Crest's Cline commits to North Greenville

Corey Cline took his college recruiting into his own hands — and it paid off for the Crest High senior infielder.

According to Chargers’ head coach Steven Hodge, recently Cline played in a showcase event and scrimmage at North Greenville (S.C.) He obviously impressed the Crusaders’ staff as he signed a letter of intent to play baseball for the Division II school several weeks later.

“I really like the school. All their facilities are nice and new,” said Cline, who also plays for the Shelby Post 82 American Legion team. “Everyone was real nice and polite at the campus. I like the way the coach ran his practices when I was there … I thought it was the place I needed to go.”

Cline came on strong for Crest down the stretch in 2006 as the Chargers won the Big South 3A/4A Conference title and advanced to the third round of the playoffs before falling to eventual State champion South Caldwell.

Hodge believes Cline’s steady improvement was a result of the him putting less pressure on himself.

“He put too much pressure to start out with early in the year,” Hodge said. “The last three weeks and in the playoffs, he came up with big hits in every ballgame. He bunts very well and hits it the other way. He does a lot of things well as long as he doesn’t try to do too much.”

Cline followed up his high school season by hitting near .290 during the American Legion campaign, and he has big goals for 2008.

“I want to have a really good high school season and with legion,” Cline said. “With the World Series coming here, I want us to win that World Series real bad. I need to work on my speed and my arm needs to get a little stronger, especially if they are going to work me at shortstop.”