The surreal moment that occurred this past weekend would have seemed almost nonsensical just a couple of short years ago; two young men from Southampton County competing for a collegiate national championship in front of a national television audience, on ESPN no less, each sporting the official cap of our local college baseball team, the PDCCC Hurricanes. Although the sport in question was cornhole and not baseball, given from whence Paul D. has come, they may as well have been playing for a national championship in baseball.

Matt Stout, who delivered the goods in the individual competition, and Blake Rose, his partner in the doubles competition, did well in representing both their college and their hometown. Yet aside from displaying their individual excellence, their appearance on the Worldwide Leader in Sports was a huge boost in the arm for the newly formed athletic department at our local college. The event’s television announcers made multiple mentions of Franklin, Paul D. and the school’s fledgling baseball program. That type of publicity at a national level, especially for a small community college, is hard to come by and its value is even more difficult to quantify.

It was an exciting moment for our community, and one that has local sports fans pondering the possibilities; if our local boys can compete at the national level in one sport, might it not be long before we see those Hurricane baseball caps competing for a championship in the sport for which they were intended? Stay tuned, sports fans. We have a feeling such a dream might not be too far from becoming a reality.