Thomas Dillard has helped Oxford, Miss., return to the state championship game with a team-high .426 batting average, 47 RBI and a team-record 14 home runs. (Photo: The Clarion-Ledger).
Thomas Dillard came into this season at Oxford, Miss., as the highly touted new kid in town after transferring from Briarcrest Christian (Eads, Tenn.). The switch-hitting senior catcher had been All-State as a junior and was listed as a Dandy Dozen preseason pick this season by the The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson.
A lot was expected of both Dillard and Oxford, which won the state title in 2015, going 35-1. It came to a head when the team beat McEachern (Powder Springs, Ga.) 4-1 in the Perfect Game tournament in Cartersville, Ga., but Dillard was down because he went 0-for-3.
“I really was pressing early on in the season,” Dillard said. “I was trying to impress the scouts and this is my last year of high school baseball.”
MORE: Vote for the USA’s top high school athletic program
Oxford coach Chris Baughman said he had to remind Dillard that his stress was mostly self-induced.
“He was pressing really hard,” Baughman said. “Probably more because he wanted to be contributing to the team but also pressing so that his (draft) stock would go up. After we won that first game, he was down and he didn’t play awful. He just didn’t hit. I went in there and told him: ‘You’re a senior. Don’t get caught up in these expectations. Just go out and have fun.’ ”
Flash forward 27 games and Dillard is hitting a team-leading .426 with 47 RBI and a team-record 14 home runs. The Chargers play Hattiesburg Thursday with a chance at their second consecutive title.
“As of late, people have quit pitching to him,” Baughman said. “He does a great job of making them pay for mistakes. Against Lafayette (Oxford), he hit the farthest ball I’ve ever seen hit in person at any level of baseball. It would have hit a house that’s about 150 feet from our outfield fence but instead hit a tree first. Our practices stop when he hits.”
He’s also playing well behind the plate.
“He had been splitting time behind the plate until (Ben) Bianco tore his labrum,” Baughman said. “Since Ben has gone down, Thomas has embraced that role and does an extremely good job of shutting down baserunners. He has a quick arm, with a release of 1.8 seconds to second.”
Dillard comes from an athletic family. His grandfather, Wilson Dillard, was a running back at Ole Miss and his father, Tom, was a shortstop at Memphis. While he played several sports growing up, baseball has been Dillard’s main sport since middle school.
Dillard helped Briarcrest finish as the state runner-up last season, but when his family moved an hour south to Oxford, the adaptation was relatively easy for him. That’s because he had two older sisters already living in Oxford and he had played youth and summer ball with several of Oxford’s players, including three other Ole Miss signees: shortstop Grae Kessinger; and pitchers Jason Barber and Houston Roth.
MORE: Mickey Moniak has been money for La Costa Canyon
“They’ve been able to bounce off stuff one another,” Baughman said. “All four complement each other and it helps to share and talk about the scouting process.”
While he has been consistent as a hitter, his power surges have been streaky. On May 4, he hit three homers in a 10-0 defeat of Center Hill (Oliver Branch) and in one stretch in late March, he hit seven homers in six games.
“When I hit home runs, I hit them in bunches,” Dillard said. “If I’m seeing the ball good, that’s all it takes.”
Follow Jim Halley on Twitter at @jimhalley