By Kayla Berns, Staff Writer
“Looking back, Armstrong baseball has been a good fit for me. I’ve been able to be close to home and have family at most every single game and I have had great teammates that will be friends for the rest of my life. I know lots of guys who play at the D-1 level, and they are amazed at the close bond that our entire team has with one another.”
Those are the words that Armstrong baseball senior first baseman R.J. Dennard spoke when looking back at his time here at Armstrong. The 6’2’’ Soperton, GA native is on his way to winning his 2nd PBC Championship as a Pirate. The first championship was earned during his freshman year, Dennard acknowledges this as his favorite moment here at Armstrong so far.
As a freshman, Dennard was awarded second-team All-Peach Belt Conference and ABCA All-Southeast Region honors. He was also named the PBC Freshman of the Week three times and ranked sixth in the PBC in batting average.
His sophomore and junior year he started every game for the Pirates. He was named PBC Player of the Week on April 22nd and again earned second-team All-PBC honors and second-team ABCA All-Southeast Region honors. Dennard ended the 2014 season as a PBC All-Tournament Team honoree, ranked second in the PBC in batting average, fourth in slugging percentage (.667), and fifth in home runs and home runs per game.
So far this season Dennard is hitting .343 with one homer and thirteen runs batted in. He and the Pirates are making some serious noise both in the PBC and on the national scale.
Dennard is a twice over a member of the PBC Presidential Honor Roll and has been named to the Armstrong honor roll all four years of his college career.
“It is important to always stay focused on the bigger picture,” Dennard advised, “Being a student always comes before being an athlete. You can only play a game for so long, eventually you have to have a real job and I always kept that bigger goal in my head when it came to school.”
Dennard is set to graduate in May with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Chemistry. He has been accepted into South University’s school of Pharmacy here in Savannah, where he plans to start in June and continue to work towards his aspirations of becoming a Pharmacist.
You can witness RJ’s record-breaking career continue as they take on USC Beaufort March 24 at 2 p.m. on the Pirates field.
