Cross brothers doing well in D1 baseball
Jul. 15—Southern Lee won the Tri-County Conference title and was one of the top 3A baseball teams in the state for most of the 2018 season. A big part of that was the contributions of brothers Hayden and Caleb Cross, in the only campaign where they played full seasons together.
Both of them have moved on to bigger and better things. Following the 2018 season, Hayden signed with Appalachian State University, while Caleb played two more seasons in Cavalier orange and then signed with UNC-Asheville, where he just completed a solid freshman season.
Hayden, an outstanding defensive catcher for the Mountaineers, was a junior with sophomore eligibility in 2021. Every NCAA player who played in 2020 was granted an extra year of eligibility due to COVID-19 disrupting and in many cases cancelling their schedules.
He was an important player from the very beginning at Appalachian. As a freshman in 2019, Hayden started 12 games and appeared in 24, hitting .277 and driving in nine runs in 47 at-bats. He became the starter in 2020, but the Mountaineers' season was cancelled after just nine games due to the pandemic.
In his "second" sophomore season this spring, Hayden hit .245 with 13 runs scored and 10 RBI in 40 games, 32 of them starting assignments. On May 22, in Appalachian's third-from-last game, he hit the first home run of his college career at home against South Alabama.
In an April 6 game at NC State, Hayden went 2-for-3 with a run scored against the Wolfpack, who reached the College World Series and ended the season ranked No. 3 in the nation.
Caleb signed with UNCA after completing his own career at Southern Lee. Focused on pitching for most of his time with the Cavaliers, he went 8-3 in his career with a 1.20 ERA, with 93 strikeouts in 95 innings pitched. Southern won another conference title in 2019 and was expected to be a contender for the state championship in 2020, but after a 3-0 start, COVID-19 wiped out Caleb's senior season.
He made an excellent debut, working out of the Bulldogs' bullpen, on Feb. 23. Pitching for Asheville against Western Carolina, he tossed two scoreless innings with two walks and two strikeouts in a 10-4 victory.
However, the early part of the season saw some rough going. He was hit hard in his next three appearances, and after a month of Division I baseball, he owned a 9.00 ERA in six innings.
The worm turned for Caleb on March 26 at home against Radford, where the Bulldogs lost, but he entered in the fourth inning and pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings, allowing just one hit. From that day until the end of the season in mid-May, Caleb had a 3.29 ERA, ending his freshman campaign with no decisions or saves, while lowering his season ERA by nearly four full runs, to 5.03. His improved form led to his getting the call in two late-season games against Big South powerhouses Campbell and USC Upstate, and he held his own against both.
