East Clarendon's Newsome shows consistency on way to Hines Furniture Athlete of the Week

Sometimes a little confidence goes a long way.

That was the case for East Clarendon's Graham Newsome last week. One hit turned into two, which turned into win after win for the Wolverines. Newsome only had one plate appearance over three games that didn't end with him getting on base or a run coming home to score. All he had to do was get the ball rolling.

"He was confident," East Clarendon head coach Curtis Johnson said of his infielder. "That was the one thing he was struggling with was his confidence. He got confident, and he carried it over. When he has some confidence, he's a really good player and he carried it over to the plate and had a really good week for us."

Newsome's performance was also enough to earn recognition as the Hines Furniture Athlete of the Week after the Wolverines finished the week a perfect 3-0.

"It means a lot," Newsome said of the recognition. "I was excited, I've never been voted for Athlete of the Week before, but it meant a lot for me. I think we're going to have a lot of success this season."

The Wolverine infielder, who spent time at second and third throughout the week, just felt his swing click into place.

"I don't really know what happened, I just started seeing the ball better and started putting the bat on the ball, making them make plays and seeing what would happen," Newsome said. "Just getting loose at the plate and putting the bat on the ball."

Newsome's great week started in a 3-1 win against Manning on Monday. Runs were hard to come by all night, but Newsome came through with a two-run single in the third that proved to be the difference.

"We knew we had to get some runs on the board. It was getting late in the game, and we knew we had to pull the win through," he said. "I just had to make something happen and make them make a play."

Johnson could see the confidence growing in Newsome after the win, and he moved the infielder up the lineup throughout the week. He moved up a few spots in their rematch with Manning on Thursday, roping a double with the bases loaded to bring home three runs in a 10-0 rout. The next night, he was batting third against Hannah-Pamplico in the Hunter "Chop" Lee Invitational, going 2-2 with two RBIs a walk and a run scored.

"Any time you move a guy up into the three or the four hole, they see that you have confidence in them," Johnson said. "I try to lean on him having a good game and that me showing confidence in him would carry over and it did. He saw the ball really well."

Friday's tournament was an important day for the East Clarendon community, so Newsome was chomping at the bit to keep his hot streak at the plate going.

"The team was really excited to play. It was one of the first games in our Chop Lee tournament, so we were all excited to play, ready to get on the field," he said. "I was just going up with the same mentality of putting the bat on the ball and trying to make stuff happen."

Now the key for Newsome is to keep the hot streak going. The Wolverines have another busy week on their hands now.

They played three nights in a row on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday before continuing the Hunter "Chop" Lee Invitational on Saturday. The first two games ended in drama as they lost a walk-off thriller with SCHSL 5A school Carolina Forest before beating West Florence with their own walk-off on Wednesday. Newsome just wants to keep the ball rolling as the Wolverines work to build on two deep postseason runs in the last two years.

"Just get up there and have confidence in yourself, have confidence in your teammates that they'll back you up," Newsome said of the key to success. "We'll just play hard, play 100% at every rep."

Johnson can see that confidence build throughout the team as the Wolverines gear up for region play.

"Those guys are starting to believe that they're pretty good, and they're starting to buy into doing the little things right," Johnson said. "When we do the little things and put pressure on people - we're going to pitch and play defense - so from an offensive standpoint, when they're able to execute and do the things we ask them to do, they believe that we're pretty good and they believe that the little things matter. When they started doing that, we started playing well."