Local baseball players learn new drills at camp hosted by former collegiate coaches

Published 8:31 pm Tuesday, August 25, 2020

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VIDALIA — More than 37 young baseball players attended a professional baseball skills camp Saturday at the Vidalia Sports Complex.

Jeff Southall and Raymond Laval were on hand to teach local baseball players the professional way to play baseball at Saturday’s skills camp. Both Southall and Laval were two former LSU collegiate baseball coaches.

The camp was separated into two groups: one group for ages 8-to-13 years old and one group for ages 14-to-18 year olds. There were 33 kids in the first group and approximately 30 were from the Miss-Lou. There were four kids in the second group and two were from Vidalia.

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Tristan Burns, 12, and Eli Twiner, 10, were in the first group at the skills camp. Both Burns and Twiner play youth baseball in the Miss-Lou and both have played baseball since they were 3 years old.

“My favorite part of the camp was hitting,” Twiner said. “It was fun to learn from former collegiate baseball coaches at the camp.”

Sam Harp and Luke Williamson were two Miss-Lou high-school baseball players in the second group on Saturday. Both Williamson and Harp play for the Vidalia High School Vikings baseball team and they said they both agreed the back-toss hitting drill was a noteworthy drill.

“The back-toss hitting drill was something I had never done before and that was difficult,” Williamson said. “It was difficult because the ball was coming from behind.”

Harp said he is going to attend another camp and use the drills he learned from the coaches in his hitting, especially the back-toss hitting drill.