Kane Kepley (49) celebrates. By Mike London mike.london@salisburypost.
com HYANNIS, Mass.— Two of the best center fielders playing college baseball are from Rowan County. Salisbury High graduate Vance Honeycutt, the rising senior star of the UNC Tar Heels, you know about unless you’ve been in a coma for a couple of years.
Honeycutt may be as talented as anyone in the college game, a combination of outlandish running speed and even more outlandish bat speed, and he’s about to be on the biggest stage he’s ever been on — the World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. The Tar Heels will kick things off against their old friends from Virginia on Friday at 2 p.m.
South Rowan graduate Kane Kepley, the rising junior star of the Liberty Flames, you may not know about. While Honeycutt is a muscular keg of dynamite, Kepley is a firecracker who comes in a smaller package. Honeycutt is a scout’s dream — 6-foot-3 and 205 pounds of grace and right-handed power.
Kepley, a kid born with a love for baseball 20 years ago on Valentine’s Day, is only 5-foot-8, 165 pounds, but he also has outlandish speed and like Honeycutt he frequently makes impossible plays in the outfield, whether it’s flying in, diving laterally or soaring at the wall. On Saturday, Kepley will play on the biggest stage he’s ever been on — the Cape Cod Baseball League. The Cape Cod Baseball League swarms with MLB scouting directors and assistant general managers every summer because every player invited to play in t.
