Former Strawberry Crest High School pitcher Jacob Heath, now a member of the University of West Florida Argonauts’ program, was presented with the Eric Workman Award as his summer with the Covington Lumberjacks nears its end.
A graduate of Strawberry Crest in 2019, Heath had just one collegiate offer coming from Polk State where he committed to continue his academic and athletic career. A self-proclaimed late bloomer, Heath spoke about the struggles that he faced as he made his transition to the junior college level before the COVID-19 pandemic marked an abrupt end to his freshman spring with the Eagles program. After two more years at Polk State, with an extra year of eligibility still in his back pocket following the truncated 2020 spring, Heath talked to a few schools before transferring to DII University of West Florida.
In Heath’s first year with West Florida, he posted a 4.73 earned run average across 17 appearances as a sophomore before joining the Covington Lumberjacks in the Valley Baseball League — an NCAA and MLB-sanctioned collegiate summer baseball league with teams throughout the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia.
“The program that Eric Beattie runs at Strawberry Crest is pretty good,” Heath said. “He definitely has his experience in college and pro ball, even at the summer league level as he’s coaching in probably the best summer league in the country in the Cape Cod League. He definitely knows his way around as far as the team he puts together and how he prepares us for college. I think he did a really good job and he never shorted us of the expectation that were demanded of us in college and then there are definitely things that you have to experience for yourself and you can’t really replicate in high school but there’s an individual type of approach to the game as far as taking it seriously and having pride and I really think he instilled that in me going to college. Then going to Polk State College for three years really allowed me to develop there at the junior college level. It definitely prepared me for success and over that time I learned a lot about myself, a lot of things about the game. Then I got a chance to go up to West Florida this past year and I loved it there. I had a really great season overall with the team, we became like a family right away and it was definitely a really great culture, and then got an opportunity to come up and play summer ball in Virginia this summer in the Shenandoah Valley League which was a really good opportunity to keep working and get better and ultimately one day strive to play professional baseball. That’s the goal, it has been for a long time and it’s obviously been one step at a time in the development process but I feel like every step of the league I’ve learned something and playing up here in the Valley League has been another one of those steps.
With the Lumberjacks this summer, Heath has led the pitching staff with 28.1 innings pitched while posting 36 strikeouts, a 3-2 record, one save and a 2.86 ERA. Last week he was also presented with the Eric Workman Award.
The Eric Workman Award is dedicated to Eric Workman, a former collegiate baseball player who played for the Lumberjacks in 2007 before joining the West Virginia State Police and tragically losing his life in the line of duty in 2012. The community service award is presented annually to one member of the Lumberjacks team, as voted on by their teammates.
“A lot of things up here have definitely been very special as far as adjustments as well as the learning curve that goes along with it,” Heath said. “We play just about every day, there’s been rainouts and great competition and you also kind of play in small towns so you work with what you’ve got. It gives a great environment to focus on what you need to do without a whole lot of outside distractions so the past couple of months here has given me the opportunity to dedicate this time and this summer to really getting better and making some jumps. With the award, it’s very special and I’m honored to have received that, it all comes with the teammates. Even here the culture of this team is pretty fun. We’re all in Covington, Virginia together and there’s a few things to do but it’s limited so we work with what we’ve got, try to make the best of it and through hanging out we’ve become very close. With me being a little bit older I definitely have a little bit more experience than some of the younger guys. Just playing junior college baseball, playing at a good DII and then there’s some young guys coming in that are very talented but may not have the experience so if I can help them in any way whether it’s giving them some advice or just being a friend to them I just do what I can. And then there’s a lot of ways that I can learn from them as well.”