NATCHEZ — Adams County Christian School second baseman Ryan Lackey is a fan of repetition.

Mastering a particular practice or acquiring a certain skill by the art of repeating something keeps Lackey in a constant cycle of learning. It intrigues him and explains why Lackey is such a fan of the medical field and baseball.

“It’s just tradition, dedication and hard work,” Lackey said. “Baseball is all about mechanics. It’s just repetition and doing stuff over again. It doesn’t really favor people like a lot of other sports do.”

Lackey, who is carrying a 4.0 GPA his senior year at ACCS, loves baseball, football and even admits an appreciation for soccer, which isn’t the most popular sport among his peers.

He’s played baseball most of his life, and though he took a couple of years away from the baseball diamond to focus on his studies, he’s returned for his senior season.

“I missed it,” Lackey said.

A normal day for Lackey consists of arriving to school at 8 a.m., leaving ACCS and driving to Copiah-Lincoln Community College to take a college course around 9 a.m., then heading back to ACCS at 10 a.m. for classes until 1 p.m.

Once Lackey gets out of class, he normally heads to the batting cages for batting practice until practice starts at 3 p.m. When he gets home around 6 p.m., Lackey does homework until 8 p.m. and then finishes the day with Netflix.

“I don’t really watch much T.V., but I watch Netflix,” Lackey said. “I watch “Dexter,” “How I met Your Mother,” “House of Cards.” “House of Cards” is pretty good. At first it’s kind of confusing if you don’t know a lot about politics. I don’t know a lot, myself, but I’m starting to after watching a lot of that show.”

His love for baseball is undeniable, as seen through his five hours a day on a normal school week spent practicing and playing. However, his true competitive setting is in the classroom, where Lackey is working hard for his future.

“I don’t really think I have that much of a future in baseball, but if you put hard enough work in a classroom, you never know what you can do,” Lackey said.

His physics and calculus teacher, Ali Smith, started teaching at ACCS in January, but it didn’t take her long to realize who was going to be a leader in theclassroom.

“In physics, we have two tables and (Lackey) normally takes charge of his table and helps explain to the other kids how to do what I’m trying to teach them to do,” Smith said.

Smith said she’s impressed by his ambition, striving to better himself as graduation draws closer.

“He knows what he needs to do in order to succeed,” Smith said. “He’s still undecided about where he wants to go to school, but now that it’s crunch time, he’s cracking down and preparing for the next level.”

Lackey draws his inspiration from his mother, Betty Lackey, and his grandfather Frank Ivy Lackey Jr. While his mother worked, his grandfather would take care of him, be there to support him at games and give him rides to and from the field.

“I’ve always just had high moral values,” Lackey said. “My mom has always worked hard to let me go to school.”

Lackey enjoys watching sports in his downtime, particularly his favorite team, the Boston Red Sox.

“I’m not a bandwagon fan, but the Red Sox have been my favorite team since Manny Ramirez was on the cover of MLB Baseball 2005,” said Lackey, referring to the popular video game. “I played that like every day of my life.”

It should come as no surprise that Dustin Pedroia, the undersized second baseman for the Red Sox, is Lackey’s favorite player.

Lackey is relying on his preparation in the classroom to turn him into a future professional on a different playing surface.

Though he’s still undecided, Lackey wants to attend Ole Miss this fall with hopes of studying something in science and attending medical school after graduating.