By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Western Alamance graduate Austin St. Laurent was drafted in the 14th round by the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday.
St. Laurent has been a standout for the past three seasons for Appalachian State.
For St. Laurent, having a chance in professional baseball continues a track that he has been on since playing youth baseball.
“He was a big recruit,” Western Alamance coach Mitch Carter said. “All the huge schools were trying to get him in for visits. He has got all the tools.”
Much of the foundation was set with the Burlington-based Dirtbags travel baseball program and with Western.
He was a starting infielder for the Warriors as a sophomore, when they produced a 26-2 record. They went 18-10 the next year, though his senior season in 2020, when Carter said Western was amped up for a strong season, was reduced to six games because of the pandemic.
“He was going to be a big part of that,” Carter said.
St. Laurent is the third draftee who played for Western in the last 25 years. Catcher Brian Foster was drafted out of high school in 1999 by the Milwaukee Brewers. Outfielder Brock Deatherage, after four seasons for North Carolina State, was selected by the Detroit Tigers in 2018.
Among those, St. Laurent is the first to play at Western with Carter as the head coach. The Warriors have produced a steady flow of college players, and Carter said the Appalachian State player worked out some last winter at Western prior to returning to Boone.
“We’ve been lucky we’ve had a lot of Division I players,” Carter said.
St. Laurent chose East Carolina, spending one season there as a redshirted player before shifting to the other side of the state and excelling for Appalachian State.
In 2022, he was selected as the Freshman of the Year in the Sun Belt Conference. He batted .305.
He was a versatile player for the Mountaineers, playing as a shortstop and third baseman this year when he was named to the All-Sun Belt Conference first team as a utility player. He also started games as a center fielder and first baseman during his time at Appalachian State. He’s listed as a third baseman on the draft chart.
St. Laurent batted .366 with 14 home runs and 60 runs batted in this year. He scored an Appalachian State single-season record 78 runs and he reached base safely in the final 24 games of the season.
St. Laurent was the only 2024 draftee from Appalachian State. His selection came on the final day of the three-day draft.
The Mountaineers had a 33-21-1 record this year, giving them back-to-back 30-win seasons for the first time in more than a decade.
St. Laurent played part of the 2022 summer season with the Burlington Sock Puppets of the Appalachian League.
