Vincent’s Aiden Poe named Co-Pitcher of Year by Alabama Baseball Coaches Association

Published 10:02 am Thursday, October 10, 2024

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

Aiden Poe may currently have his focus on the football gridiron, but the Vincent Yellow Jackets ace took home an additional honor for his work on the diamond.

The Alabama Baseball Coaches Association (ALABCA) named Poe its AHSAA Co-Pitcher of the Year on Tuesday, Oct. 8 through a post on X, formerly Twitter.

Poe shared the honor with Corner pitcher Eli Cannon, who was named the Class 4A Pitcher of the Year by the Alabama Sports Writers Association in June.

In addition to the award from the ALABCA, Poe won 2024 Class 2A Pitcher of the Year for the first time and earned Shelby County Pitcher of the Year for the second time overall and first time outright.

The Air Force commit went 12-1 across his 16 appearances and also earned one save, which gave him Class 2A All-State First Team and All-County First Team selections on top of his numerous awards.

Poe struck out 134 of his 303 batters for an average of 11.8 strikeouts per seven innings. He walked just eight batters in the entire 2024 season.

Poe surrendered just 11 earned runs and 20 runs total and held opposing batters to just a .149 batting average all while pitching a county-high 79.1 innings.

That led to a 0.97 ERA and 0.67 WHIP, which were some of the best figures in all of Shelby County including relievers who pitched in much less innings than he did.

Poe pitched a county-high six shutouts, and multiple of those big performances came in the biggest moments, including against Class 4A West Blocton and area foes Fayetteville and B.B. Comer.

In addition, three of those shutouts were no-hitters as he was the only pitcher in the county to throw multiple no-hitters this season, with the first two coming against Class 4A Montevallo and Class 5A St. Clair County in a two-week span.

His third came at a crucial moment in the season in the second round of the playoffs on the road against the Fyffe Red Devils.

After striking out 12 while allowing just one run against Lindsay Lane in the first round, Poe went to Fyffe and dismantled the Red Devils for eight strikeouts in five innings to secure the 10-0 no-hitter victory in Game One.

He then came into Game Two after Fyffe loaded up the bases in the bottom of the seventh. From there, he struck out the side in 11 pitches for his first save of the season to seal a quarterfinal berth for the Jackets.

At the plate, Poe batted .393 with 35 hits, 43 RBI and seven doubles across 89 plate appearances for a .557 on-base percentage, .517 slugging percentage and an OPS of 1.074.

Other players honored by the ALABCA included Hartselle’s Jojo Williamson, who was named the Position Player of the Year, and Bob Jones’ Braden Booth, who brought home Dual Player of the Year honors.

The organization also announced additional awards for the AISA and the Alabama Community College Conference (ACCC) for players and coaches. A list of those awards can be found on the ALABCA’s official X account, @AlaBCAUpdates.