All-Area High School Baseball 2024: Corn helped push Lion playoff run on the mound and at the plate

Published 7:55 am Saturday, July 20, 2024

Christian Heritage School’s Sawyer Corn admits that he didn’t play as well as he could have during his freshman season for the Lions’ baseball team a year ago.

“My mindset for this year was to be a lot better,” Corn, the lead pitcher and an infielder for the Lions in 2024 as a sophomore. “I wanted to build confidence in myself and just show what I could do on the field.”

Thanks in part to playing with more of that confidence that he built, Corn said, he excelled.

Confidence helped Corn to a 5-2 record as a pitcher and to 71 strikeouts across his 58 innings pitched. Corn also was the leadoff man for the Lions, batting .368 while piling up 28 hits on the year. He had six doubles and a pair of triples and stole 14 bases.

“I had a good year on the mound,” Corn said. “It was nice to be kind of the ace of the team and to have that confidence in myself. Confidence goes a long way.”

Corn was named the Region 7-A DII Player of the Year and was selected to the All-Region first team as both a pitcher and an infielder.

For his stellar sophomore season, Sawyer Corn has been named the 2024 Dalton Daily Citizen All-Area Baseball Player of the Year.

Nine games into the season, Christian Heritage was 1-8.

A tough non-region schedule lined up by first-year head coach Mike Brady left the Lions coming up short against some of the better teams in the state.

“It was one of the hardest schedules that our program has ever seen,” Corn said. “We didn’t really like it at first, but we started to notice that we were winning more and more games and winning the important games. They really got us ready.”

The Lions broke a seven-game skid with a win over LaFayette — Corn pitched five scoreless innings — then got rolling.

Despite a pair of losses to Region 7-A DII champ and eventual state semifinalist Bowdon, Christian Heritage went 8-4 the rest of the way in the regular season.

In the first round of the Class A DII state playoffs, Christian Heritage opened with a 5-0 win in a three-game series against Taylor County. Corn pitched a complete game shutout.

After a 10-7 loss in game two, Corn went 2-for-2 with a double and two RBIs as Christian Heritage routed Taylor County 15-3 in game three to move to the second round.

The Lions played Lake Oconee Academy, another state semifinalist, in the second round.

After Christian Heritage dropped game one, a Corn triple — combined with a shutout from fellow pitcher Levi Holland — help extend Christian Heritage’s season by a game with an 8-0 win in game two.

A 7-3 loss in the decisive third game ended Christian Heritage’s season in the state Sweet 16.

Corn credits Brady and the Lion coaching staff with helping turn a struggling team on a losing skid earlier in the season into a team that was a game away from the state quarterfinals.

“They helped us get to where our potential is,” Corn said. “And our potential is to go even further.”

To help the team reach that potential, Corn wants to get better going into his junior campaign.

“I feel like I could have done better at the plate,” Corn said. “There is always more room to improve.”

One of those areas he wants to improve? Extra-base hits.

Corn’s hitting and speed helped him to six doubles and two triples on the year — both coming in the playoffs — but he wants to hit with more power next year.

“I want to get stronger,” Corn said. “That’s the goal for next year.”