LIVE OAK, Fl. (WTXL) - The Suwannee Bulldogs are considered one of the top teams in the state of Florida, but that doesn't mean senior Sam McMillan and his teammates are satisfied.
"I think our ceiling is as high as we can take it," he said. "I think any opponent that we match up with, if we play our A-game, we can compete with anybody."
With stats like Sam's, who leads the team with seven home runs, 26 RBI, and a near 500 batting average, it's easy to see why this Bulldog team is so competitive.
"Guys like Sam, they're once in a lifetime guys you get to coach," said head coach Justin Bruce. "They challenge you as a coach everyday. Everyday you come to work, you have to be prepared, you have to have your stuff in line, because you know with how smart they are and how much they work at the game, you can't just come in and go halfway."
"Playing catcher it's a little bit easier to play a leadership role," added Sam. "Everyone's always looking at you, you have to be the most vocal player on the field. For me, I think that helped me a lot."
Sam's taking those talents to the University of Florida, where he'll play for the Gators next season - and he didn't choose the orange and blue just for athletics, Sam has a 4.0 GPA.
"It's definitely something that's not always easy," he said of balancing academics and athletics. "A lot of times you have to give up other things you want to do if you want to be serious about athletics and school at the same time. It's something that I take pride in, I take very seriously so now I'm just used to it. It's just what I do."
"I think the other guys can look up to him," said coach Bruce. "He's a good role model for our younger guys to see how you can take care of stuff on the field and in the classroom and be good at both of them. Not just be decent at it, but be really good at it."
As long as Sam keeps being really good, the sky is the limit for this Bulldog team.
"It's not the end result that we want yet. We still have games left to play, but I think to this point, everyone's pretty proud of how we've done so far."
Districts start the first week of May for the Bulldogs.
