YEATESVILLE — After falling to Riverside in the second round of the NCHSAA 1-A state playoffs Dillon Cutler was not ready to end his playing career and thanks to the College of Albemarle he won’t have to.
Cutler, who was lightly recruited during the season, opened eyes with his playoff performances and happily accepted the chance to play for the junior college.
“I’m ecstatic. Our last game with Riverside didn’t go to hot and I was thankful and blessed with the opportunity to be able to go and play somewhere else,” Cutler said. “I was helping my brother coach a little league team and it was making me cry everyday because I knew I couldn’t go back in time.”
Thanks to the College of Albemarle Cutler won’t need a time machine, which is a good thing because his former Northside coach Keith Boyd said the future looks bright for the hard-hitting first baseman.
“I’m extremely happy for him. He’s worked hard and this has by far been his best year,” Boyd said. “With him being a senior we leaned heavy on him. He batted in the four spot and he led the team in RBIs (23), slugging percentage and batting average (.366) and he was our offensive guy. If we got runners on for in front of him we always felt like we had a good chance to bring them in.”
Cutler, who stands at a hulking 6-feet, 1-inches tall, said his goal was to have an impact on the game whenever he stepped into the batter’s box.
“Every time I got to the plate I tried to be aggressive, no matter how many people where on base I would try and make something happen and give our team some momentum,” Cutler said. “I just wanted to get the enthusiasm up for everybody.”
Cutler, who was a WDN All-Area first-teamer in football and in baseball, said he received some interest to play on the gridiron but in the end wanted to stick to the diamond.
“I had a couple of schools look at me for football but nobody really offered the way the College of Albemarle did,” Cutler said. “They jumped right in and called me and did everything to get me on track to go there. Once they did that I was pretty determined that, that was where I wanted to go.”
Dillon’s parents, Scott and Kim Cutler, were thrilled to see their son’s hard work payoff.
“I’m tremendously happy. He’s worked hard his whole life to get there,” Scott said. “We weren’t sure he was getting seen but we kept saying work hard and sooner or later somebody will come out of the closet and they did. It kind of happened at the last minute and we were ecstatic.”
Kim said she knew this day would come since the moment Dillon took his first steps.
“We always knew he would do it,” Kim said. “His first steps were for a baseball. We couldn’t get him to walk but one day his daddy picked up a baseball and he took three steps. He’s been after one ever since.”