Athlete of the Week: Hartland's Brayden Crowe hit .574 through April

HARTLAND — Nobody expected Hartland junior Brayden Crowe to keep hitting .574 all season, as he was heading into May.

Hitting at that clip for four weeks is something Hartland coach Brad Guenther said he’s probably never seen from a high school baseball player. Only a small handful of players in Michigan history have managed to hit above that mark for an entire season, most from smaller schools that don’t face the pitching Crowe goes against game in and game out.

“Typically, it’s a little more of a streak and a hot-and-cold,” Guenther said. “It’s just been consistent barrels and quality contact. If he keeps hitting the ball that hard, he’s going to keep getting results.

“Baseball typically evens it out a little bit, for sure. We’ll be happy if we just get a smaller percentage like 80% of that out of Brayden the rest of the year. That would be tremendous.”

All it took was a 1-for-5 game against Brighton Wednesday to lower Crowe’s average to .542. That still puts him 53 points ahead of Pinckney junior Nolan Carruthers, the second-leading hitter in Livingston County.

Crowe’s 30 runs batted in are nine more than Brighton’s Cooper Andrzejewski.

Where did this come from?

As a sophomore, Crowe batted .250 with six RBIs in 64 at-bats.

“I’ve just been trying to not do too much,” Crowe said. “I’ve been setting it well. Just getting faster, stronger, healthier. Just more reps, in general. Just hard work week after week.”

Crowe is the Livingston Daily’s Athlete of the Week after going 9-for-14 with four doubles and 16 RBIs in four games the week of April 22-27. That included a 20-6 victory over Grandville in which Crowe went 5-for-5 with eight RBIs and two doubles.

On Monday, Crowe remained hot by delivering a game-tying two-run single in the seventh inning of a 6-4 victory at Brighton. It’s the third time this season Crowe has brought home the tying or winning run in the seventh inning.

“He’s just been putting really good swings on it,” Guenther said. “He’s had a few bloopers. If you’re hitting that good, you’re going to be running good, but he’s really been consistently hitting the ball hard. Maybe five or six times, he’s just cleared it over the outfielders’ heads. He isn’t getting cheated too much. It’s going to be hard for him to keep hitting .570 all year, but hopefully he keeps putting good swings on the ball and having quality at-bats for us.”

Contact Bill Khan at wkhan@gannett.com. Follow him on X @BillKhan

This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: Athlete of the Week: Hartland's Brayden Crowe hit .574 through April