NATCHEZ — Adams County Christian School catcher Christopher Perry may have primarily been a catcher, but his hitting is what gave him first team All-State honors.

The Rebels junior was recently named to the MAIS All-State team as the first-team designated hitter. Perry, who batted No. 3 for ACCS, said the news of being All-State was a big deal for him.

“I was pretty excited when I found it,” Perry said. “It’s a really big honor.”

Although catcher is one of the more important defensive positions on the field, Perry said it’s no more difficult than any other position.

“You have to be in the game at all times,” Perry said. “You have to know who the runners are and what kind of speed is on the bases. You also have to know who’s batting at all times.”

Although Perry is a running back for the ACCS football team, he said the position is more similar to the quarterback position in football.

Like the quarterback, you have to be able to see the field well, and like a quarterback getting the play calls on offense, the catcher will get the pitch signals from the coach.

“(Coach Hunter McKeivier) calls the pitches, and I call whatever he calls,” Perry said. “The only instance I’ll call something different is if we get mixed up. The pitches that are called depend on who the batter is.”

Even though he’s one of the team’s feature hitters, Perry said he doesn’t consider himself any more important than the other eight hitters in the lineup.

“You can’t really do it all as one person,” Perry said. “It takes all one through nine. Everyone helped out. We all had our slumps, but sometimes we all came ready to play.”

But Perry admitted there were some days the team should have come a little more ready to play.

“Some games we were lackadaisical,” Perry said. “Some games we came ready to play, but the games we really need to do well, sometimes we wouldn’t start hitting well until the third inning.

“After we started realizing (that we needed to do better), we came together to play good baseball.”

Perry hit .578 with 17 home runs and 36 RBIs. He was named to The Natchez Democrat’s All-Metro first team at catcher.