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AREA BRIEFS: OJO, PORTER OPT FOR JUCO ROUTE
August 22, 2012
From Winchester Star staff reports
STEPHENS CITY — Recent Sherando graduates Joseph Ojo and Tre Porter will not be attending Hargrave Military Academy this fall to play for the school’s post-graduate football team and will instead attend separate junior colleges to continue their athletic careers.
Ojo, a running back and The Winchester Star’s Offensive Player of the of Year last fall, will attend Erie Community College in Buffalo, N.Y. Porter, The Winchester Star’s Baseball Player of the Year, has decided to pursue baseball and will attend Potomac State College in Keyser, W.Va.
Ojo and Porter both announced their commitment to attend Hargrave during a ceremony at Sherando in May in which they and five of their teammates announced where they would continue their education and football careers.
Sherando football coach Bill Hall, who only knew about Ojo’s situation during a phone interview Tuesday, said he didn’t want to comment about what happened with Ojo and Hargrave. He’s just glad that Ojo found a place to play.
“He just wants an opportunity to play, and he’ll have that there,” Hall said. “I think they have high expectations for him, and I think Joe has high expectations for himself.”
Erie competes in the Northeast Football Conference and went 2-8 overall and 1-5 in conference games last year.
Porter’s father Jeff didn’t get into specifics, but he said his son had to look elsewhere because the details of the situation the family thought it was getting into when Porter originally committed to Hargrave turned out to not be what they thought they were.
Porter, who was planning to play cornerback at Hargrave, is going to Potomac State largely because of the success he’s had in baseball this summer. During a Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau tryout camp at Bridgeforth Field last month, Porter, a shortstop, was one of just nine of the more than 80 infielders and outfielders who were asked to stay for the entire tryout.
Gene Kerns, an Atlanta Braves scout who lives in Hagerstown, Md., and who coached Jeff in college in Hagerstown, was at that tryout. On Aug. 12, Kerns put Porter through a workout at Sherando High School.
In addition, Porter went to Danville on Thursday for a Braves tryout that was held there, and Jeff Porter said scouts told Tre they’d like for him to go find a place to play, because they wanted to keep their eyes on him.
After numerous calls made on Porter’s behalf, Kerns found an interested party in Potomac State coach Doug Little. The Porters spoke to Little over the phone over the weekend, and Little said he’d have a spot for him.
Jeff Porter said it’s a good fit for Tre because of the baseball program, its proximity to Stephens City, and the housing situation, where Tre will live in a dorm. Tre is already at Potomac State after enrolling in classes Monday.
Potomac State has competed in the JUCO World Series seven times, most recently in 2011.
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