Jalin Lawson wins Wiregrass Home Run Derby

It didn’t take Jalin Lawson – or any of the 37 participants in the 18 th annual Wiregrass Home Run Derby – long to realize adjustments would be required to win the title.

After a couple weeks of unseasonably warm temperatures, Saturday broke cold and windy, and that wind was whipping across Rehobeth High School’s baseball diamond toward right field.

“I started off trying to pull it, but I saw that wasn’t going to happen,” said Lawson, who will start his senior season at Charles Henderson High School in Troy in a couple weeks.

Lawson did adjust, however, and defeated four other finalists in the championship round. He hit six home runs in the finals, edging Houston Academy’s Camie Choquette by one homer.

Alex Plagenhoef of Providence Christian won a slug-off to take third place over Trey Truitt of Rehobeth. Both belted three homers in the finals. Gabriel Granger of Northside Methodist Academy, who had led all participants with 11 total home runs through the first four elimination rounds, hit two homers in the finals.

Each of the finalists – all right-handed hitters – discovered the contest wasn’t just how hard you hit the ball, but where you hit it.

“You had to hit it where the wind was going,” Lawson said. “It was going to right field, so that was the only choice you had. Get it up in the wind and let it go.”

Choquette said he found left field was no man’s land in the very first round.

“One of them that I pulled, I started to walk back to the dugout. I thought it was over,” Choquette said. “And then it just hit a wall of wind.”

Choquette said he didn’t expect to finish second.

“I was shooting for the top 10,” he said. “I did a lot better than I thought I was going to do. I hit a couple pretty hard to the opposite field.”

Plagenhoef said, “I have to say the hardest ball I hit did not go out. I hit one really hard (to left) and it just died. This was awesome, though. It was my first time in it.”

Brutal conditions and good competition did not cloud the day for Truitt.

“It went really well,” the 15-year-old sophomore said. “I just tried to do my best and represent my school.”

Granger, whose brother, Hoke, won this event last season, said he had a lot of fun – and it was a tough day to hit.

“It was the wrong day to be cold and windy,” Granger said. “The wind was blowing straight out to right. There’s no pulling the ball today. You’ve got to inside-out everything. Get it up in the air to right.”

The finals format was five “innings” of five outs each. Choquette led Lawson 4-3 going into the fourth inning. But Lawson hit three homers to Choquette’s one to take the lead.

“I got them pretty solid,” Lawson said. “At the start of the day, I didn’t think it was going to be that tough. But with the wind blowing, I couldn’t pull it. It was a hard adjustment to hit to right field.”

Lawson earned a plaque, a bat and a $500 check for Charles Henderson.

“It’s been a good day,” Dothan Post 12 manager Larry Tubbs said. “The crowd was good all day. We scaled it back to just bring in the high school kids this year. The weather, as it usually does, affects it.

“But it’s a good event. It gets everybody thinking about baseball for a little while.”

The event also included a ceremony awarding the David Hussey Memorial Scholarship, presented annually to a deserving Enterprise State Junior College athlete, to Jacob Malkoff.