Spalding’s Smith wins final ‘Prep Ballplayer’ award; Nominate players for our first ‘Diamond Nine’

Three.

It’s a number that now means a couple things for the Archbishop Spalding baseball team.

On May 25, the Cavaliers beat Gilman to win their third straight MIAA A Conference championship. And now, thanks to Barrett Smith’s runaway victory, they have three BaltimoreBaseball.com Prep Ballplayers of the Week in our inaugural season.

Smith, a senior who will attempt to walk on at Maryland in the fall, easily beat Bel Air sophomore Liam Bowers and Patterson Mill junior Jake Sheesley in our final Prep Ballplayer of the Week competition by collecting 8,550 of the roughly 10,500 votes cast. He joins Billy Godrick (Week 1) and Tyler Blohm (Week 6), who are also both seniors, as Spalding’s winners of our weekly honor.

Thank you to all of our BaltimoreBaseball.com readers for your interest and participation during the 2016 high school baseball season. Overall, in eight weeks, we had 120,000 total votes cast for the local athletes. That’s incredible. We’re glad that we have brought more attention to high school baseball in the Baltimore area each week and hope to do so again next season and beyond.

In the coming days, we will publish the first BaltimoreBaseball.com Diamond Nine.

What is the Diamond Nine?

As mentioned last week, it’s our year-end selection of the best local high school baseball players. We’ve been following the action around the region and selecting the best weekly performers over the past two-plus months.

Now, it’s time to unveil our picks for the top nine players around here this season. If you would like to submit candidates to be considered for the list, it’s not too late. Please send the player’s name, key statistics or notable games, as well as your contact information to dean@baltimorebaseball.com by Wednesday evening. They don’t have to have been nominated for Prep Ballplayer honors to be eligible for the Diamond Nine. So if we overlooked someone, let us know.

BALTIMOREBASEBALL.COM PREP BALLPLAYERS OF THE WEEK

Week 1 (April 4-10): Billy Godrick, Archbishop Spalding
Week 2 (April 11-17): Jack Sheehan, Loyola Blakefield
Week 3 (April 18-24): Michael Yetter, Bel Air
Week 4 (April 25-May 1): Bryce Logan, Fallston
Week 5 (May 2-8): Brandon Martin, Westminster
Week 6 (May 9-15): Tyler Blohm, Archbishop Spalding
Week 7 (May 16-22): Anthony Cuellar, Aberdeen
Week 8 (May 23-30): Barrett Smith, Archbishop Spalding