East Clarendon's Springs powers playoff run after All-State season, earns Hines Furniture Athlete of the Week honors

For the second straight season, the East Clarendon baseball team played for the SCHSL 2A lower state championship this week. One of the biggest reasons was a senior in the middle of their lineup, Wes Springs.

Springs already put together an All-State spring in the regular season and put together an excellent performance in the postseason. Last week, he hit .500 and drove in seven runs as the Wolverines sewed up their district title and kicked off play in the lower state tournament. He then added one more item to his list of honors this spring, being named the final Hines Furniture Athlete of the Week in the 2025-26 school year.

"I've had some of the best fans and supporters that anybody could have," Springs said of the East Clarendon community that rallied around him and the rest of the Wolverines throughout the spring. "Every game, I can count on somebody being there to cheer on the game and help us pull out a victory, no matter where we play or how far away we play. I feel like they see the importance of the game just as much as we do. They truly care about us; they feed us before every game and always make sure to do their part. We do have a small community, but they make up for it with the love and passion that our fans give us."

East Clarendon head coach Curtis Johnson has loved watching Springs blossom into a star this spring. He was a reserve for a large portion of his junior season but broke out at the end of the year and carried that momentum into his final spring with the Wolverines, earning All-State honors after leading EC with 32 hits and 33 RBIs with a .381 batting average this spring.

"I'm so proud of Wes," Johnson said. "As a junior, at the beginning of the year, Wes wasn't in the lineup. He worked his tail off in practice every day and we got to spring break, and he got a chance, he hit a double, got another chance and got hot. He ended up staying in the lineup for us for the rest of his junior year. Then he got to his senior year, and the expectation was for him to hit in the middle of the order for us and be a leader, and he grabbed the bull by the horns and did that. He was a force in the middle of the order for us; he was a guy that people had to game plan against to make sure he didn't beat them. I'm so proud of Wes and the work he put in and his heart and his desire."

Unfortunately, Springs didn't get the storybook ending he was hoping for, as the Wolverines fell to Atlantic Collegiate 4-2 on Wednesday in the lower state championship, but that didn't overshadow the spectacular final season he was able to have at EC.

"This has to be, by far, one of the best baseball teams I've ever played on or could've dreamed to play on," Springs said. "I've played with the same group of boys since I was in T-Ball, and all of that chemistry built up, and we just show everything we've got on the field, and we know we have what it takes to be a state champion. It didn't end up in our favor, but we definitely did pour out everything we had every game, and we showed that we could do as much as we could; it just didn't end our way. We probably worked harder than every team in our region this year, but not everything works out."

Springs had a few standout moments throughout the postseason, but the loudest was certainly the booming blast he launched to finish off the Wolverines' 15-2 win over Cheraw to open the lower state tournament on May 14. He stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded and crushed a ball into the bleachers in center field for one of the longest home runs ever hit in Turbeville.

"I've never seen that done at East Clarendon," Springs said. "I honestly didn't think it was going to be a home run. I hit it off the bat, and I thought it was going to be a line drive over his head to win the game. When I rounded first, I looked and it just kept going. God definitely had in His mind that night that He wanted something special to happen, and it sure did."

Johnson was thrilled to see one of his senior leaders have a dramatic highlight amid a superb senior year.

"He deserved to have a moment like that. He worked so hard, and that's a moment he'll never forget. That's what's so special about it," Johnson said. "No matter the score of that game, to hit the ball into the bleachers to walk it off in that fashion, I can't imagine the feeling he had coming out of the box on his way to first base, hearing the ball hit those bleachers. He deserved that, and it's something he'll remember for the rest of his life."

While that swing provided a massive highlight, Johnson appreciates the fact that Springs is also willing to do the little things. The senior isn't afraid to drop down a bunt if it's what the team needs in that moment, and that mindset trickles down to the younger players on the team.

"I think that's one of the core values of our team. We're going to play the game a certain way, we're going to be selfless and, in those situations, we're going to execute," Johnson said. "Him and Barnes (McConnell) both embody that. Those seniors bought in. We used to say all the time at the beginning of the year, 'If you can't bunt, you can't play.' We worked on bunting every day, and those guys knew how important playing small ball was to me and to our program. They bought in, and it helped them be successful."

Before facing Cheraw in the lower state tournament, the Wolverines earned a pair of wins over Philip Simmons to win their district. Those wins, which came by scores of 6-1 and 9-2, meant a little bit more to EC, as the Iron Horses were the team that eliminated East Clarendon in last year's lower state championship. Springs was excellent in both matchups, going 3-5 with three RBIs, three runs scored and a walk as EC punched their tickets to the lower state tournament.

"It was amazing. I obviously remembered the feeling of sitting there and watching them celebrate; I've held onto that the whole playoffs, and we used that to our advantage," Springs said. "We knew when we stepped on that field that it was nothing but straight business. We had to take care of business, and that's exactly what we did."

The Wolverines then opened this week with their most dramatic win of the postseason, scoring three runs in the bottom of the second to win their rematch with Cheraw 5-4 on a walk-off bunt by Braylon Hunt. That game will be a lasting memory for the East Clarendon senior, especially as his final home game in Turbeville.

"That game has to be one of the most stressful but entertaining games I've ever been in," Springs said. "Starting out, we felt good, but about the fifth inning, I started having some doubts. I knew I didn't want that to be my last game, so I did everything I could. I gave all of the boys a pep talk; I pushed them. I knew in that last inning, the bottom of our lineup was coming up, but I had faith in my boys because we work hard every day. I knew something special was about to happen, and I knew I shouldn't hang my head because my boys have my back, and they didn't want that to be my last game ever."

The cherry on top of an excellent senior season was earning All-State recognition alongside fellow senior Barnes McConnell.

"It's really special. Me and Barnes have been playing baseball since we were little. To go through everything we've been through and develop into the kinds of players we were this year, it's special," Springs said. "There haven't been a lot of players at our school to get All-State in the past couple of years. I think it's special to our coach and my parents that I was able to get it and I was able to work hard enough to get it."