High School

Crawford, Sprinkle and Yetter compete for ‘Prep Player of the Week’

By Dean Jones

Posted on April 25, 2016

In each of the first two BaltimoreBaseball.com “Prep Player of the Week” competitions, an athlete from the MIAA A Conference has received the most votes from our readers – Archbishop Spalding’s Billy Godrick in the inaugural contest and Loyola Blakefield’s Jack Sheehan in the most recent one.

This week, it’s a battle between three right-handed pitchers. Calvert Hall’s Trevor Sprinkle will attempt to make it three straight for the MIAA A Conference, while Howard’s Casey Crawford and Bel Air’s Michael Yetter will try to become our first public-school winner.

If this is your first time visiting BaltimoreBaseball.com for our Prep Player of the Week voting, know our primary goal is to highlight three of the area’s top high school baseball players from the previous week in a post every Monday.

Then, you get to vote – early and often – for the athlete you believe should be our winner. Thanks to a record 26,024 votes — out of a mind-boggling 53,507 total cast last week — Sheehan topped Patterson Mill’s Austin Koehn and Chesapeake-Anne Arundel’s Joe Seidler.

To vote this week, make your selection at the bottom of this post. Voting ends 11:59 p.m. Thursday night. On Friday, we’ll reveal the winner. Details on each of this week’s three candidates – for the games from April 18 to April 24 – are listed below, as well as the other players who received serious consideration.

If you would like to submit candidates to be considered as the BaltimoreBaseball.com Prep Player of the Week in the future, please send the player’s name, key statistics from the previous week, and your contact information to [email protected].

This Week’s Finalists:

Casey Crawford, Howard

The 6-foot-3, 185-pound senior struck out 12 Centennial hitters and only allowed one unearned run as the Lions beat the Eagles, 2-1, on Monday. Crawford, who has committed to play baseball at Division III Bridgewater, scattered six hits in the complete game to improve to 4-2 with a 0.78 ERA this season. He also had two of Howard’s seven hits in the victory. In the fall, Crawford threw for more than 2,300 yards and 26 touchdowns to lead the Lions football team to a runner-up finish in Class 4A.

Trevor Sprinkle, Calvert Hall

With no outs and runners on second and third in the seventh inning Tuesday, Sprinkle finished what he started for a 2-1 victory over Gilman. The 5-foot-11, 165-pound senior, who will pitch at Miami Dade College in Florida next year, stranded the two Greyhound runners by striking out the next two batters and then inducing a game-ending groundout. Overall, Sprinkle struck out eight, allowed four singles and walked one. He has been considered for this honor in all three weeks. On April 13, he took a no-hitter into the seventh and had eight strikeouts in eight innings as the Cardinals topped St. Mary’s, 2-1. And he struck out nine St. Paul’s hitters and held the Crusaders to one run and two hits in a 2-1 win on April 8.

Michael Yetter, Bel Air

The Bobcats trailed rival North Harford by two runs in the third inning of a key Upper Chesapeake Bay Athletic Conference matchup Friday when Yetter relieved starting pitcher Luke Beyers. The 6-foot-1, 165-pound junior held the Hawks scoreless over the next five innings and Bel Air rallied to score three runs in the top of the seventh for a 3-2 win. Yetter struck out nine and gave up only two hits in the outing. And he got the winning rally started by walking and then scoring the Bobcats’ first run. With the victory, the Bobcats remain near the top of the UCBAC’s Chesapeake Division.

Others considered (listed alphabetically): James Angel, Old Mill; Gunnar Barnard, Marriotts Ridge; Tyler Blohm, Archbishop Spalding; Andrew Brndjar, Aberdeen; Camden Cregger, Francis Scott Key; Spencer Dietrich, Severna Park; Spencer Horwitz, St. Paul’s; Brandon Martin, Westminster; Brady Ward, Arundel.

BALTIMOREBASEBALL.COM PREP PLAYERS OF THE WEEK

Week 1 (April 4-10): Billy Godrick, Archbishop Spalding
Week 2 (April 11-17): Jack Sheehan, Loyola Blakefield