By Robert Wilson
Madison Central alumnus Braden Montgomery has been a key player on the top ranked high school team in the country and a high school All-American and also ontwo College World Series teams and named an All-American with Stanford.
The sophomore outfielder-pitcher received his biggest honor so far in his career Thursday night, being selected as one of the 31 players for the USA Baseball National Collegiate National Team.
Montgomery was named after being one of 58 participants in an intrasquad series of four games between the Stars and Stripes at the USA National Training Camp at Cary, North Carolina. All the players are non-draftable college players.
Montgomery and his teammates will represent Team USA in a pair of five-game series with Chinese Taipei and Japan June 30-July 12 at various locations across the Carolinas.
The 6-foot-2, 217-pound Montgomery, who batted in the cleanup position, hit .336 with 70 runs scored, 14 doubles, a triple, 17 homers and 61 RBIs. Montgomery reached in all but six games this year and has 27 multi-hit games and hit safely in 48 of 64 games this season. A right-handed pitcher, Montgomery has a 1-2 record and has appeared in 10 games.
Montgomery hit a school-record 18 home runs, scored 50 runs, had 57 runs batted in and hit .297 as a freshman at Stanford.
Montgomery played at Germantown as a freshman and sophomore then switched to Madison Central as a junior.
Montgomery visited Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Missouri, and Stanford and committed to Stanford before cancelling a visit to LSU during his junior year at Madison Central.
Montgomery hit .479 and an 9-0 record with a 0.74 earned run average and led Madison Central to a 34-2 record, the 6A state title and a No. 1 national ranking by Baseball America as a senior. He was named the Mississippi Gatorade Player of the Year and the PriorityOne Bank/Mississippi Scoreboard Metro Jackson Player of the Year.
“We are extremely proud of Braden,” Madison Central coach Patrick Robey said. “We are proud that his hard work has paid off. He was the first one there and the last one to leave when he was at practice. His success is earned. Braden is a super talented two-way player. He puts in so many hours training that he is one for young players to model their work ethic after.”
Montgomery’s parents are Gretchen and Rich Willock and Marcus Montgomery. Gretchen, Braden’s mom, is an emergency room physician at St. Dominic in Jackson and Rich, Braden’s stepfather, runs the Magic Baseball Academy in Magee. Marcus Montgomery, Braden’s father,lives in Southaven and is in real estate development. Gretchen was a high school track athlete in Iowa. Both Rich and Marcus played football at the University of Iowa.
Braden has three siblings, his older sister, Skylar, 22, just graduated from the University of Wisconsin and will be going to medical school. Younger brother, Mason, 14, will be a freshman at Germantown and plays baseball and younger sister, Marley, 12, will be in the seventh grade at Germantown Middle and is a gymnast.
