Prince Avenue freshman steps into big roles on state championship football, baseball teams

Freshman Hudson Hill had big shoes to fill in the fall when he got to Prince Avenue Christian.

As a dual-sport athlete joining the ranks of two reigning state championship teams, there was immediate pressure set upon his shoulders. For a 15-year-old, that can be scary, knowing there's expectations and standards already in place.

"He's fitting in really well," coach Allen Osborne said. "Hudson, he's a good spirit. Obviously a very good football player and an extremely, extremely good baseball guy. His skill set on the baseball field is highly advanced (for him just being) a freshman. He's fitting in really, really well and he's done a very good job in centerfield and the one hole, who he took over for [Bailey] Stockton, who's at Georgia Tech. Bailey was a superstar here and Hud's done an extremely good job for us in everything we've asked of him so far."

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Like Hill, Stockton was also a dual-sport player in football and baseball. Stockton graduated in 2023 and redshirted his first year on the Yellow Jackets' football roster, which added former Prince Avenue quarterback and three-time state champion Aaron Philo this winter.

After his performance in the fall, where he recorded 84 receptions for 1,234 total yards (ranked No. 12 in the state) and 17 touchdowns, you could probably begin to say Hill might become the next Stockton — the next big name to flesh out as a Wolverine in both football and baseball.

He currently has a .347 batting average after 49 at-bats, tallying 18 runs, 17 hits, 12 RBI, a double, triple and home run in just 14 games. He's also stolen five bases and, in the field, has 23 total chances, 21 putouts and a double play, according to MaxPreps.

Of course, he's still got a lot of time ahead of him to prove that title true.

"I feel like he's a baseball player who plays football," Osborne said. "He's got the baseball IQ on the football field. He's elusive, he's quick, he's start-stop, he's not a guy that's going to go in there and just stick his head in. Baseball, obviously, is a much different game, but he's done a good job of transitioning between the two physically, too. He brings a football mentality to us on the baseball field. He's full tilt, he lays out, he runs the bases very hard, very well and very aggressive.

"So, both football and baseball correlate (to make him who he is). ... He's got a very future ahead of him."

Baseball is a game of failure, Osborne explained.

In football, you catch the ball and run as fast and as far as you can, but you have teammates to fend off the oncoming defenders. Sure, in baseball you catch the ball too, but you also hit the ball to a field full of defenders. Baseball is more mental than it is physical, he said, and the guys like Hill who can handle that, play for a long time.

Hill said it helped, having people like senior Connor Causby in his corner when he made the transition between seasons. Both play wide receiver for coach Greg Vandagriff and outfielder for Osborne.

"He really helped me, really taught me how practice worked and how games go," Hill explained. "He really invited me into the team ... I do think I'm performing pretty decently with these guys, and I don't really (experience) any pressure with them. They just have fun with the game, (and so I do too)."

It's never about the past, only the present, for Osborne's baseball team, which currently stands 13-1 headed into region play this week.

"There's pressure in life, it's just how you respond to it, how you react to it," Osborne said. "Hud puts a lot of, I wouldn't say pressure, on himself. He just wants to be good at it and you can tell he's always wanted to do that as a young guy. Us coming out here, we don't worry about state championships, we don't talk about last year's state run. We just go out and we try to beat the game of baseball every day, trying to live up to our standard. Doesn't matter who we play, we really don't even worry about that. We're just trying to play baseball, you know, pitch and catch it and hit it at the right time.

"(Hud) does a really good job of remaining level-headed. We don't want peaks and valleys. In this game here, you can't be peaking and valley-ing. You've got to be Steady Eddy."

Sara Tidwell covers Athens-area high school sports and University of Georgia athletics for The Athens Banner-Herald. Contact her at stidwell@gannett.com and follow her @saramtidwell on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Hudson Hill on living up to Prince Avenue's athletic standard