By Langston Wertz Jr.
lwertz@charlotteobserver.com

Baseball always has come easy for Mallard Creek High junior shortstop Mikal Hill. His father played professionally in the minor leagues. His brother is playing Division I college baseball, and Hill always was around the game.

This season, he's putting up some impressive statistics.

Hill, who committed to play for South Carolina before his sophomore season, is hitting .582 with seven home runs, three triples and nine doubles in 25 games. He has 39 RBIs, with 18 stolen bases in 21 attempts and he's 2-0 as a relief pitcher. Hill's also fast, capable of running the 40-yard dash in about 4.4 seconds.

Next year, some pro scouts say, Hill could be picked during the top three rounds of the Major League Baseball amateur draft. That doesn't surprise his father.

"He started playing when he was 5," said Chris Hill, a former Harding High standout who played four seasons of Class AA ball as a pitcher in the Pittsburgh Pirates' organization. "The first time he went to the ball field and picked up a bat, you could tell that's what he wanted to do. He was a natural at it."

Last summer, Mikal Hill learned the hard way that his athletic talents shouldn't be taken for granted, as when he injured his back while working out.

He was doing some preseason conditioning in the weight room with the football team last June and was doing squats, designed to strengthen his legs. Lifting his maximum, he felt his lower back give.

Hill, who is 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, wanted to take his speed to play for the Mavericks' football team. He hadn't played the sport since middle school.

At first, Hill didn't think much about his back. It was just a little sore. He went to an All-American baseball showcase event in San Diego. He played summer baseball on a traveling team called the Dirtbags, a group of some of the state's best high school players who faced top national competition. His confidence exploded.

"I faced pitchers every day who were throwing 88 to 92mph," Hill said. "It made you feel good just being there because you know you're there for a reason, but it's also intimidating because everybody is as good as you. If you think you can throw 90, well, so can the kid beside you."

No minor workout setback

Hill joined the football team last fall, playing receiver, and lasted about three weeks into the regular season. His back had gotten worse. He couldn't run without pain. Some days, he couldn't walk without pain.

"I never really saw myself as the kind of guy who would say, 'This happened to so and so, but it won't happen to me,'" Hill said. "I always think, 'Well, that could happen to me. I could get in a wreck.' So I'm usually trying to be careful. But this taught me to not take anything for granted. It taught me this is more possible than you think."

In late October, doctors diagnosed him with a stress fracture in his lower back. The pain, by then, was intense.

"I didn't think I'd be able to play the baseball season, that's how bad my back hurt," Hill said. "I would be at home wondering why I'm hurt. It was hard."

Hill did physical therapy for two months and stretched every night. Other than losing his mother Darlene to breast cancer 10 years ago, Hill said this was his toughest challenge.

But he did the work. He got his rest, and by January - just before baseball tryouts - he ran one day without pain for the first time in months. Always a hard worker, he re-dedicated himself to his favorite sport.

Here's what that re-dedication looks like: Hill's batting average is up more than 200 points from last season (.357). He's hit seven more home runs and has 30 more RBIs than last season and nearly doubled the hit total. His team, 11-11 last season, is 17-8 and is as deep in the postseason - second round of the N.C. 4A playoffs - as it has ever been.

"Sometimes, the only thing I think he can't do" is make an out, said coach Shawn McGeorge. Friday night against West Mecklenburg, "he was 0-for-2 with a strikeout in his first at-bat. My assistant coach said, 'Those are the only times he's getting out.' He went 3-for-3 after that with a two-run single, a two-run double and a three-run homer."

Hill has lots of help. Freshman Kirk Morgan, who plays left field, second base and pitcher, hits before Hill and is batting .410.

"He's a phenom," McGeorge said of Morgan.

Jamel Harbison, a transfer from Tennessee, is batting .354. Junior third baseman John Murray is hitting .368, and Butler transfer Brandon Wilkerson, a junior centerfielder, is hitting .348.

"Everyone's contributing," McGeorge said, "and Mikal came back much improved. He's also physically matured and he took on more of a leadership role this year. Having the new kids around him has pushed him a little bit. He sees the talent we have in place and he sees the potential that this team has."

Growing into a collegian or pro?

Hill, whose team will play at Porter Ridge today, said he's always dreamed of winning like this, ever since he was a kid when he would go out into a field near his home with his brother Alex, now a junior at UNC Wilmington.

"I would go to all of Alex's games growing up. I was the ball boy," Mikal said. "And if he wasn't playing, and we would get bored sometimes around the house, we'd go out to a sandlot field and toss the baseball around. I loved it."

By the time he was a high school freshman, colleges were contacting Mikal. North Carolina was the first school he visited. Before he committed to South Carolina, N.C. State and Arizona and the Tar Heels were recruiting him heavily.

"That was surreal for me," Mikal said.

Hill carries a 4.2 GPA in advanced classes, and Mallard Creek athletics director Karen McKaig said "Hill is as great as he seems, on and off the field."

With his back problems behind him, Hill said he is only thinking about the future. He's thinking about pushing his team deep in the playoffs and about making the USA Baseball 18-and-under team this summer. He's been invited for tryouts next month in Cary.

But he and his family also are thinking about whether he'll play professionally right out of high school.

"If he's offered life-changing money," his father said, "he'll have to take it. The coach at South Carolina (Ray Tanner) said when the time comes, they're going to ask around and if they find that Mikal can clear $1million - and I don't mean sign for it, I mean clear it - they'll advise him to sign and go pro. But it's got to be life-changing money.

"I'm so proud of Mikal, though. There are much worse decisions he could have, right?"

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