Creek’s Solliday is Hitter of Year

LEAGUE CITY — As a junior, Brad Solliday played a total of four innings of varsity baseball.

His senior year turned out to be something more special, as he hit .414 with five homers and 36 RBIs to help lead the Clear Creek Wildcats to a share of the District 24-5A championship.

Solliday’s strong performance at the plate this season also earned him The Daily News’ Baseball Hitter of the Year honors.

“It felt great to have such a good year in my senior season,” Solliday said. “To be able to accomplish what I did and help our team win a district championship was unbelievable.”

Solliday had been a third baseman, but the Creek coaching staff spent his junior season teaching him how to be a catcher. With so few at bats under his belt, Creek head coach Jim Mallory wasn’t expecting much from him.

“Very seldom do you see a kid that has that little varsity experience come out and make an impact like he was able to do,” Mallory said.

“The power he had was a surprise and the average was a surprise. He really turned out to be a luxury for us.”

Mallory said the key was correcting major flaws in Solliday’s swing during the offseason. Solliday said he had a tendency to swing around the ball, which needed to be fixed.

“The coaches had me separate my hands like (Boston first baseman) Kevin Youkilis to make sure I stayed inside the ball. Then, as my swing improved, I slowly started moving my hands together.”

Solliday said he first started to get confident in his abilities at the plate when he hit a game-winning opposite field home run in an offseason tournament against Houston Bellaire. Then, in the season-opener against Angleton, Solliday hit another homer.

“At that point, I started to relax,” Solliday said.

Solliday quickly moved up the Creek line-up and found himself sandwiched in between sluggers Reed Gordy and Chris Morales. Solliday said that took a lot of pressure off and allowed him to keep swinging a hot bat.

Solliday drove in at least one run in 23 of his 31 games. He went hitless in only five games during the season.

“Brad was a very coachable young man,” Mallory said. “Everything fell into place for him, and we couldn’t have been happier for him.”

Since Solliday didn’t produce until late in his career, he didn’t receive much attention from college scouts. He decided to enroll at the University of Houston after getting accepted into the Honors College.

Solliday said he figured that was the end of his baseball career. However, now he is getting the itch to try and walk on to the Houston baseball squad.

“As the fall gets closer and closer, I am starting to miss the game more and more,” Solliday said. “If this is it for my baseball career, I will miss it, but it was a good way to go out. But I may try to walk on at Houston and prove that I can play college ball.”