Former Red Raider now starring for top-ranked Wake Forest
The accomplishments for Baylor School's 2021 baseball team included a 27-4 record, the TSSAA Division II-AA state championship and a No. 8 national ranking.
The legacy of that group is still growing, though, as multiple former Red Raiders continue to add accolades for themselves and their teams at higher levels of the game.
That 2021 roster featured nine athletes who signed with NCAA Division I programs, including Wake Forest first baseman Nick Kurtz -- a junior from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who is currently projected as the No. 1 pick in this year's Major League Baseball draft. He spent his freshman year of high school at Manheim Township before heading south to Chattanooga, and in both locales he stayed well-rounded athletically.
"Nick came here as a highly touted baseball player, but he also enjoyed playing basketball," Baylor baseball coach Mike Kinney said. "As major league scouts would come through, we would introduce our guys, and then here would come 6-foot-5 Nick Kurtz exhausted from basketball practice. We would always say, 'This one has got more potential than any of the others.'
"Now Nick is in a space where he is physically in baseball shape and he has put his swing together. He has started to reach his potential, which we all knew was there. He is a for-sure superstar."
Kurtz committed to Wake Forest as a Baylor sophomore, along with Red Raiders teammate Danny Corona. The two frequently talked together about how one day they would alter the trajectory of the Demon Deacons on the diamond.
During their freshman year at the Atlantic Coast Conference program in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, they helped Wake Forest to a 41-19-1 season that ended in the regional round of the NCAA tournament. Last season, the Demon Deacons set a program record for wins while going 54-12, finishing first in the ACC regular-season standings, earning the No. 1 overall seed for the NCAA postseason and reaching the College World Series for the first time since winning it all in 1955.
(READ MORE: Wake Forest duo from Baylor among former Chattanooga-area stars in College World Series)
The 2023 Demon Deacons made their own run at the title as part of the eight-team CWS field in Omaha, Nebraska, with a 2-0 loss to LSU in 11 innings keeping them from reaching the best-of-three championship series. Three of four games Wake Forest played in Omaha were against LSU -- the Demon Deacons edged Stanford 3-2 in their opener -- and the Tigers won two of those before going on to beat Florida in an all-Southeastern Conference showdown for the NCAA crown that went three games.
"Danny and Nick talked all the time about how they were going to change the Wake Forest program. Dang if they didn't do exactly that," Baylor co-head coach Greg Elie said. "Now kids want to go there, and Nick is going to be a legend there.
"The great thing about Nick is as crazy talented as he is, he is the most even-keeled and chillest kid you will meet. It's fun rooting for those guys. Seeing our players go on and have so much success brings us so much joy. We get to watch them achieve their dreams."
Team USA roots
Kurtz teamed up with future Baylor School teammates Corona and Cooper Kinney for the first time while representing the United States in 2015. That U.S. team went 8-1 at the 12U Baseball World Cup, including an 8-1 victory over host Taiwan in the gold-medal game on Aug. 12, 2015, at Tainan Stadium.
Kurtz slugged a home run for Team USA and also was its ace, with the left-hander going 2-0 with a 0.41 ERA and 15 strikeouts in 14 2/3 innings. Eight years later, he is one of the country's top college baseball players and has been tabbed by the Baseball Prospect Journal, MLB.com and USA Today to go No. 1 overall to the Cleveland Guardians in MLB's first-year player draft this July. Bleacher Report has the slugging first baseman going second to the Cincinnati Reds.
Either way, he has a legitimate chance to become the highest draft pick from the Chattanooga area since Kenny Henderson, a Georgia prep standout for Ringgold, was the fifth player selected in 1991.
"As my teammate and friend, to watch Nick dominate and make a big name for himself at Wake Forest has been so much fun," said Kinney, a Tampa Bay Rays prospect who has a .275 average with 36 extra-base hits in his first 491 professional at-bats since being selected 34th overall in the 2021 draft out of Baylor.
"Nick has put in the time and effort, and all of his hard work is paying off," Kinney added. "He has locked in on baseball and grown in all aspects of the game. If he plays to his potential, he will make a big impact in the big leagues one day. I can't wait to see how he does this upcoming season."
Baylor's 3-peat
Kurtz offered one of the biggest flashes of his superstar potential on Baylor's senior night in 2021, when he sent a laser-beam shot over the right-field fence, a fast-moving home run that did not come more than 15 feet off the ground on its way out.
Kinney hit a team-high 10 homers that season, but with Baylor totaling 44, there were obviously many standout contributors for the Red Raiders, who won their third state title in a row. Baylor won the 2018 and 2019 DII-AA championships but then had to wait a year for the chance at a three-peat when the coronavirus pandemic wiped out the 2020 season for TSSAA spring sports.
(READ MORE: Vytas Valincius, incredible pitching lift Baylor to third straight baseball state title)
In addition to Corona, Kinney and Kurtz, the future D-I signees -- though not all in baseball -- on that 2021 team were Jay Dill, Henry Godbout, Caleb Hampton, Amari Jefferson, Patrick Johnson and Vytas Valincius. Kinney wound up forgoing his scholarship opportunity at South Carolina after getting drafted.
"We have six to eight kids who have been a part of our program over the last six years who will have a chance to be professional baseball players," Coach Kinney said. "We attempted to tell that in the most humble manner we could that this is going to be the best baseball team that's ever played in the Chattanooga area. I think that will come to fruition with the next two to three draft classes."
This season, Baylor will have seven to eight graduates who will start in the ACC or SEC.
Reviving Wake
These days, Kurtz is the face of the Demon Deacons, who are the country's top-ranked team by every major baseball publication as the season gets underway this weekend.
He was a preseason All-American first-team selection this year after ranking in the top 12 nationally in walks (63, sixth), home runs (24, tied for 11th), on-base percentage (.527, seventh), runs (76, 12th) and slugging percentage (.784, ninth) during a memorable 2023 campaign in which he hit .353 and drew three intentional walks.
Attempts to reach Kurtz for this story were unsuccessful. According to the Wake Forest sports information department, he declined preseason interviews but will resume talking to the media during the season.
In many ways, though, his stats speak for themselves.
"Nick can command a box and crush the ball to all fields," Coach Elie said. "His strike-zone awareness is as good as anybody I have ever seen. That line-drive home run he hit on senior night is something we talk about all the time. Our first base coach said he thought the ball almost killed the first baseman as it went out.
"To see him and all of our guys reach their potential is so rewarding. This is just the start, too. These guys have dreams of making it to the big leagues and being the best at what they do."
Working to play
For many of Baylor's former baseball stars, getting to where they are today has come from outworking the rest of their competition.
"A lot of the guys we have come through here dream of being in the big leagues one day. That is not an uncommon goal," Coach Kinney said. "But you have to be willing to sacrifice a great amount of time in order to put yourself in a position to be scouted like our guys have.
"Their vision has been passed on, and as coaches we spend our time trying to help that vision come to fruition for a bunch of kids with a dream. Getting to watch a kid's sacrifice and commitment turn into something extremely special is the most rewarding thing."
Contact Patrick MacCoon at pmaccoon@timesfreepress.com.
