Posted: December 4, 2015

By ROBERT NIEDZWIECKI

The Winchester Star

Conor Hartigan

WINCHESTER — Millbrook junior baseball player Conor Hartigan only lives “one right turn and two left turns” away from junior teammate Anthony Simonelli currently, and it doesn’t look like he’s going to need a GPS navigation device to find him in college either.

The Pioneer outfielder gave a verbal commitment to attend NCAA Division I Coastal Carolina University in 2017-18 on an athletic scholarship Thursday just six days after the pitcher Simonelli committed to play baseball for the same university.

While he’s enthused about the prospect of playing with Simonelli, Hartigan said it had no bearing on his decision. Even before either of them were recruited by the Chanticleers, Hartigan was looking into the possibility of playing for the Big South Conference school located 11 miles from Myrtle Beach, S.C.

“The chance to play at Division I baseball at a program like Coastal Carolina, and live in a pretty place (near) Myrtle Beach, is awesome,” Hartigan said in a phone interview Thursday.

Hartigan will receive a 50 percent scholarship for each of his first two years at Coastal Carolina, and a 70 percent scholarship for each of his final two years.

The Chanticleers went 39-21 last year, including 17-7 in the Big South Conference. Coastal Carolina advanced to NCAA Regional play, where it went 1-2 and was ousted by host school Texas A&M. It was the 14th NCAA tournament appearance for head coach Gary Gilmore in 21 seasons. The Chanticleers were ranked nationally for each of the last nine weeks of the season and posted an 8-3 record against ACC teams.

Hartigan said he first became intrigued by Coastal Carolina in July when he had a conversation with Rafi Vasquez, a senior at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington who has verbally committed to the Chanticleers, at the Commonwealth Games all-star baseball competition in Salem.

That led Hartigan — who led Millbrook in slugging percentage (.681) and OPS (1.164), home runs (two), triples (seven) and added 23 RBIs and a .375 batting average in 2015 — to do some research on the school, and he became interested in Coastal Carolina. A few months later Hartigan found out the Chanticleers were interested in him, too.

Hartigan’s name came up during a recruiting conversation the Chanticleers had with Simonelli, and it was revealed that Hartigan was on Coastal Carolina’s radar after watching him perform at a Perfect Game baseball tournament in Fort Myers, Fla., in October.

Coastal Carolina invited Hartigan (second team all-region and first team all-conference and district last year) to participate in a showcase camp on the weekend of Nov. 14, and they offered him an athletic scholarship based on his performance.

Coastal Carolina was the second stop in a month-long tour that began with East Carolina and concluded with Virginia Tech and Virginia Commonwealth. (Hartigan went to VCU this past weekend.) Each of those schools offered Hartigan partial scholarships.

After talking it over with his family this week, The Winchester Star’s Baseball Player of the Year and first team Group 4A all-state selection as a freshman decided there was no need to wait any longer to make a decision.

“[Gilmore] is a really cool guy,” Hartigan said. “I like the players and the field. And their strength and conditioning guys are awesome.

“Making this decision takes a lot of stress off of me, and I’m just excited about the opportunity to play Division I baseball.”

Hartigan — who will not be able to sign his national letter of intent until next November at the earliest — is now the eighth member of the 2014 Millbrook state finalist team to either sign or verbally commit to play at the NCAA Division I or II level. The others are Jacob Jaye (Virginia Military Institute, class of 2014), Hartigan’s brother Ryan (Virginia, 2015), Bruce Keenan (Bucknell, 2015), Colin Benner (Shepherd, 2015), Alex Amos (Pittsburgh, 2016), Trenton Burgreen (Shepherd, 2016) and Simonelli.