Anderson earns all-state honors

Brady Anderson certainly left an imprint in the minds of Class A high school baseball coaches.

The now-graduated Jamestown High School standout picked up all-state honors, announced on Tuesday.

“You think about individual goals, not necessarily goals to make all-state,” Anderson said. “If you had a great season, then it’s kind of added on to what you tried to do.”

The third baseman has the numbers.

He had a .422 batting average as a senior, cracking 13 doubles, five triples and two home runs. He also had 33 runs batted in and 26 runs scored, while striking out just twice.

Despite the strong season including the best overall record in the West Region, the Blue Jays went two and out at the West Region tournament.

“(All-state) is a great honor, but we’d rather have our team going to state than individuals getting awards,” said Anderson, who will play football and basketball at Valley City State starting in the fall. “It’s always nice, though — nice the coaches voted for me.”

In his four-year career, Anderson hit .363 and struck out just 12 times in 234 at-bats. He had 59 RBIs and 60 runs scored. No year was better than his final, however, with an on-base percentage of .524 and a slugging percentage of .706.

Anderson was named to the all-West Region team on Monday, along with teammates Danny Fischer and Jake Stilwell.

“(The season) just didn’t end the way we wanted it to,” Anderson said. “Everyone knew they didn’t necessarily want to play us. They knew we had some great players.”

Sun sports writer Chris Aarhus can be reached at (701) 952-8460 or by email at caarhus@jamestownsun.com

Tags: sports, jays, baseball