Williams basking in the sun for Wildcats

Archer City’s Hudson Williams has been around the game of baseball his entire life. He first started playing competitively in fourth grade with the Burkburnett Blacksox and has been involved with tournament teams just about every year since.

Despite playing with tournament teams for several years, Williams admits the game didn’t start to come naturally to him until the sixth grade. “The game started

“The game started clicking for me around sixth grade,” Williams said. “I started pitching and hitting really well. I just knew that baseball was going to be a sport I was good at.”

When he’s not harassing quarterbacks on the gridiron, he’s hitting nukes on the baseball diamond. Just this past weekend, the Wildcats third baseman went yard twice. For context, the senior only hit three round-trippers a season ago.

The biggest difference with Williams from last year to this year, according to head coach Zac Dunnam, is his health.

“Hudson is finally healthy this year,” Dunnam said. “He’s not so stiff and having to stand up straight. It always feels good when you have a huge athletic body at third base. He’s smooth with the glove; he loves the backhand play and he’s got a cannon for an arm.”

Another large improvement is his mental game, according to Dunnam.

“He’s not being as hard on himself early,” the Wildcats first-year coach said. “Hudson is a guy more than anybody that needs to have some fun. Once it stops being fun for him, he gets bored and loses interest. This group, more so than last year, is a lot more fun. It’s more enjoyable. He’s benefiting from enjoying the game.”

With success comes lofty goals and the Wildcats third baseman has set the bar high for himself.

“I want to try to hit at least 10 homers and I’d like to throw a no-hitter,” Williams quipped. “Team-wise I just want to win district. A district championship is a big goal of mine.”

While Williams is hoping for big success at the plate, his head coach just hopes he can see the potential he has in the game of baseball.

“My hope for Hudson is that he’ll just keep doing what he’s doing,” Dunnam added. “I would like to hope he understands how good he could be. If he stays locked in and keeps doing what he’s doing, there’s a future for him outside of high school baseball for him.”

Not really a quirky or superstitious player, Williams does have one gameday routine that would certainly seem out of the ordinary.

“I always lay my bat out in the sun before a game because I say I like to let it bake and get hot.”

When the day comes for Williams to no longer be laying his bat in the sun, the Archer City senior plans on attending Texas Tech to live the simple life but he doesn’t rule out the possibility of revitalizing his athletic career.

“If I get the itch to go walk-on somewhere I’ll do that but for now I just want to be a normal student. After that I want to go work for a big business firm and make money.”