KM's Howell takes Gazette baseball player-of-the-year honors

KINGS MOUNTAIN - When Jeffry Howell entered Kings Mountain High School four years ago, he and many of his teammates felt they knew a lot about winning.

After all, many of them had won baseball championships in Dixie Youth recreation leagues and for Kings Mountain Middle School.

After leading the Mountaineers to their first league title in 16 years in the spring, there's little doubt Howell and his teammates have left their mark on the program.

Even Howell said that much has been made obvious to him whenever he goes to restaurant or business in town.

"It's really been exciting this year to go into a restaurant and have people tell you how proud they are of you and what you and teammates have done," said Howell, a Gardner-Webb University recruit who led Kings Mountain to a 20-3 season and Southwestern 2A/3A Conference title.

Howell's role in that history is one of the biggest reasons Howell is the Gazette's 2009 baseball prep player of the year.

On the mound, Howell went 9-1 with two saves and a 1.49 ERA this past season, giving him 18 victories and three saves the past two seasons. At the plate, Howell improved on a .278 average with three homers and nine RBI in 2008 to a .338 average with eight homers and 21 RBI this season.

"He's just kept getting better and better every year," Kings Mountain coach Eric King said. "His junior year when he started developing his slider you could see he was better than your average high school pitcher. Plus, his fastball consistently is in the 90s."

Howell, a 6-foot, 180-pounder, was also at his best against top competition. King thinks Howell's 3-0 shutout victory over eventual Western N.C. 4A semifinalist South Caldwell in the semifinals of the Ultra Easter Baseball tournament at Shelby High in April was his best outing of the year.

"That South Caldwell game was a very dominant performance - and it came against a really quality team," King said.

King compares Howell to Chris Cloninger, a former UNC-Greensboro pitcher who played for King at North Gaston in the late 1990s.

"Like Chris, he's so determined every time he's out there to win," King said.

Howell said as soon as the Kings Mountain Middle School Patriots won the 2005 Tri-County title with classmates like Brantley Blalock, Rai Robinson, Kyle Bell and Tyler Ross he felt they could do the same at the high school level.

"We played against each other in T-ball," Howell said. "But ever since we started playing together when we were about 9 or 10 we've been pretty successful."

So successful that Blalock (Belmont Abbey), Robinson (Lenoir-Rhyne), Bell (Blue Ridge Community College) and Ross (Wingate) will join Howell in the college ranks next year.

"I started thinking about the next level before my junior year," said Howell, who also received interest from Spartanburg Methodist, USC-Upstate, Appalachian State and UNC-Asheville before choosing Gardner-Webb. "Now that it's almost here, I want to work hard to be successful at that level, too."