After a four-year varsity baseball career at Waynesboro High School, Jackson Sherman wanted to stay in-state to play college ball.
“It was a lot of ODAC schools, all over the state of Virginia,” said Sherman, before a game at EMU in Harrisonburg earlier this season. “When I narrowed it down my senior year, it was between Shenandoah and Randolph-Macon.”
A two-way player in high school as a shortstop and pitcher, Sherman, 22, decided to attend Shenandoah University in Winchester. After hitting some as a freshman, he has focused for the past three seasons on pitching and is now a senior right-hander for the Hornets. In seven outings this season, he has an ERA of 1.74 in 10.1 innings out of the bullpen.
He was recruited to Shenandoah by former pitching coach Rich Croushore, who starred on the mound for JMU and then pitched in the majors for the St. Louis Cardinals, Colorado Rockies and Boston Red Sox from 1998-2000.
Sherman is one of the few WHS baseball products to play at the college level in recent years.
Sherman has played for Hornets head coach Kevin Anderson, the former JMU head coach who is now in his 23rd season at Shenandoah – where the field is named for him.
“It is very humbling,” Anderson said.
Sherman is a business administration major with a sports management focus. He hopes to attend grad school to work on his MBA.
While his college career will soon be over, Sherman plans to continue to play in the Rockingham County Baseball League for Clover Hill. He was part of the Bucks last summer as the team won the RCBL title.
During college, he also played for the Waynesboro Generals of the Valley Baseball League for one summer in 2024, appearing in eight games, with two starts.
“Any level you go to, there is true talent,” he said. “Guys are signing from everywhere. I don’t think the Valley was too far ahead” of the ODAC.
The Hornets under Anderson made trips to the Division III College World Series in 2009 and 2010, and he was the ODAC Coach of the Year in 2014, 2017 and 2023.
“This year at Shenandoah, we are super deep” with pitching, Sherman said. “We have a lot of different guys we can throw out there.”
That has limited the opportunities for Sherman, who had thrown in 35 games as a pitcher out of the bullpen in his career with the Hornets going into May.
“He is a consummate team player,” Anderson said. “He has been a solid reliever for us his entire career. He is a Dean’s List student. He has really prepared himself well. As a person, he is first class. He has pitched in a lot of big games for us. He gets the ball in a lot of pressure games.”
“He is a big mentor to me,” Sherman said of Anderson. “His values hold true to mine on and off the field. We trust his approach, and for good reason it works. I will speak for my teammates” on that.
Touch with the Bigs
Five ODAC schools were ranked in the top 25 nationally by d3baseball.com earlier this year – Lynchburg, the 2023 national champs; Shenandoah; Bridgewater; Roanoke and Randolph-Macon.
“This is the best year the ODAC has ever been,” Sherman said.
Anderson once managed in the Valley Baseball League with Winchester, and one of his assistant coaches was Dayton Moore, a former George Mason star who was the general manager of Kansas City when the Royals won the World Series in 2015.
Moore has worked in the front office of the Texas Rangers the past few years, and the club won the World Series in 2023.
Anderson notes that he and Moore, who is in the Valley League Hall of Fame, were in the wedding party for each other.
“I married a Ginger, and he married a Maryanne,” said Anderson, with a smile and a nod towards 1960s television, before returning to batting practice before the recent ODAC contest at EMU.
Shenandoah ended the regular season 30-9 overall and 13-7 in the ODAC.
Notes
The eight-team ODAC baseball playoffs will begin Friday, May 1 with a best-of-three series at the home of the top four seeds.
No. 1 seed Lynchburg will host No. 8 Roanoke, No. 2 Shenandoah will entertain No. 7 Hampden-Sydney, No. 3 Randolph-Macon will host No. 6 Virginia Wesleyan, and No. 4 seed Bridgewater will entertain No. 5 Washington & Lee.
The four winners will advance to the ODAC Championship Weekend May 7-9 at Capital One Park in Tysons.
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Former Broadway High School and JMU outfielder Bryce Suters leads Bridgewater in batting at .405, and he has started all 40 games, with seven homers and 49 RBI.
Evan Bert, a former pitcher at Harrisonburg High School and VCU, paces the Eagles in wins with a record of 7-2 and an ERA of 3.71 in 11 starts.
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In games through April 26, ODAC schools ranked nationally by d3baseball.com were Lynchburg (2), Shenandoah (6), and Bridgewater (9).
Christopher Newport came in at No. 24, and Mary Washington received votes. Both are members of the Coast-to-Coast Conference.
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David Driver
