Carrington's Shipman, former Blue Jay Hoyt commit to VCSU Baseball

Dec. 2—VALLEY CITY, N.D. — The 2024 Valley City State University baseball recruiting class has a local flare as Carrington native Grady Shipman and Jamestown native Connor Hoyt have both decided to be Vikings.

"It feels good, him and I get to show off the local talent and see what we're made of," Hoyt said. "I didn't get to play against Shipman but I got to watch him last summer a little bit and I like the little fire he has to him. I think he'll fit in pretty well over there."

Hoyt will be arriving at Valley City after two years at Northland Technical and Community College.

"It's been fun," Hoyt said. "It's definitely kind of been what I expected that junior college baseball style to be where you're just out there, there's 20 guys and that's all you got and you gotta go out and compete and play 50 games. I don't regret a second of it, it's been a blast."

Shipman is not the first member of his family to play for the Vikings as his older brother, Jayden, played for the Vikings from 2018 to 2022. Shipman said he wanted to commit to the Vikings based on how he saw his brother get treated and based on conversations with head coach Alec DeMaria.

"My brother was really happy for me," Shipman said. "He's been helping me throughout the year since he's been home for a while. We'll go to the cage together, we'll play catch together since he's still playing amateur ball. So he really helps me keep my arm in shape and tells me things when I'm not doing them right. When I'm hitting, he'll keep me in check. He was really happy for me. (It is) probably the most words he's ever said to me that were positive. He said he was really proud of me and how hard I worked to get that."

One advantage that the Vikings had on the other places Shipman was looking at was his experience watching his brother play for the team.

"We'd go to Arizona and watch him play and I had a lot of fun there," Shipman said. "My family would always go and support my brother wherever he went so I'd go with. The players would also talk to me, always felt like I was there as a brother of a good athlete. So, they were always interacting with me between games. That's the one thing that brought me there."

Shipman's recruiting journey was complicated by the fact that former Vikings coach Casey Olney resigned in May and DeMaria was hired to replace him in July.

"I didn't hear a lot from Alec when he first started and then around September he reached out to me and asked if I would still be interested and if I could send him a couple things for him to look at," Shipman said. "So, I did and he liked what he was looking at and scheduled me for a visit."

Hoyt's journey to the Vikings was a little bit different from Shipman's as he was not in contact with the school until DeMaria took over.

"I didn't have anybody really talking to me quite yet and then I wasn't even talking to Valley yet with their old coach (Olney) and then coach DeMaria got the new job, that's when I got set up with him," Hoyt said. "It was pretty much either a phone call or text from him every week, checking in on how I was doing, how my knee was doing and everything. We got pretty close over the recruiting process, I would say."

In the tweet announcing his commitment, Shipman was listed as a right-handed pitcher and a middle infielder. The Carrington High School senior has done both for the Cardinals but is not sure that he will keep it up at the next level.

"We're gonna watch him pretty closely over the summer on how the bat continues to develop," DeMaria said. "We know it's there, it's not a question of whether he can do both. We'll definitely let him come in and give him the opportunity to come in and try to do both. It'll just be us looking at his career and his talents and seeing which side he has a higher ceiling on."

During his junior year with the Cardinals, Shipman hit .533 with four home runs and 22 RBIs and stole 17 bases. On the mound, he had a 2.87 ERA in 31.2 innings, while striking out 65 hitters. DeMaria said Shipman's best pitch is his changeup.

"He's a very talented player," DeMaria said. "He's a three-time all-region player, he was all-state this past year. That stuff is all great, and he's absolutely gonna be a good pitcher. He can swing it too. He may end up doing both here. We're excited to see which way both of those things go and lead him. He's just a good guy to talk to, good guy to have around. He cared, when he was on the visit I could very much tell he had a desire to be a Viking. We had a desire to bring him."

During his sophomore year with the Pioneers, Hoyt hit .393 with three home runs, 45 runs and 27 stolen bases.

During the recruiting process, DeMaria said he was impressed by Shipman's desire to win and competitiveness.

During his collegiate career at the University of Mary, DeMaria was a pitcher which helps him coach Shipman and the fellow hurlers on the Vikings roster.

"At the end of the day, I think it's learning to mature as a pitcher, learning to just say, 'hey next pitch,'" DeMaria said. "If you throw a pitch and you throw it perfectly and the guy barely reaches out and fouls it off and you can't quite strike him out, it's just taking a breath and saying next pitch. He's got such good stuff that over time we are gonna help him develop more velocity. We're gonna help him to learn to tunnel his pitches, his fastball, his curveball, his changeup, all those things together. So really the sky is the limit."

Shipman said he was also looking at junior colleges in Kansas and Iowa and Mayville State University.

"Valley was the one I really liked and thought it'd be the best situation for me," Shipman said.

As a former Blue Jay, Hoyt has had to get over the hatred of all things Valley City during the recruiting process.

"It's definitely gonna be a transition from in high school. Valley City was kind of your number one enemy," Hoyt said. "The entire recruiting process too, I had a couple family members ask me about it. I just said that, 'I'm trying not to think of it like that. I'm thinking of it as another opportunity for me to play two more years of college baseball.'"