Former Millville player Ryan McIsaac continues to hone his baseball skills
Ryan McIsaac can’t get enough of playing baseball and after a heavy spring playing for Division II Barton College, the 2017 Millville graduate has stayed sharp this summer while competing for Garton’s the Vineland-based team in the Tri-County men’s league.
The week began with Garton’s facing the Washington Township Senators in the best of three Tri-County League championship.
McIsaac, a second baseman-outfielder, began the week hitting .333 (19 for 57) with one home run and 12 RBI in 19 games.
“It’s been great playing here,” he said. When there aren’t games, there is still baseball work to be done. McIsaac and some of his Garton’s teammates have gone to manager Chris Williams’ house do partake in some extra batting practice.
McIsaac played two seasons at Cumberland County College, now Rowan College of Cumberland County. As a sophomore in 2019, he was an integral part of Cumberland County’s Division III junior college national championship team.
That season he earned NJCAA All-American Third-Team honors after hitting .368 with 76 runs scored, with 11 home runs and 55 RBI.
He then transferred to Rowan, but was able to play just six games in 2020 before the season was canceled due to COVID.
In 2021, McIsaac had a big year for Rowan, helping lead the Profs to the Division III World Series.
He set a Rowan record for consecutive games with a hit (29). McIsaac batted a team-high .405 and led Rowan in hits (64), runs (45), doubles (18) and total bases (101). He also had five home runs and 26 RBI.
McIsaac earned several honors in his one full season at Rowan, including first-team all-New Jersey Athletic Conference. He was chosen to the NCAA Regional All-Tournament Team and was named to the ABCA/Rawlings All-Region first-team and the D3Baseball’s All-Region team. He was also a CoSIDA Academic All-District honoree.
The NCAA didn’t count the spring of 2020 on a player’s eligibility. The Division 3 committee took this ruling a step further and announced that 2020-21 spring sport athletes were also eligible for an extra year of eligibility.
So after his first season at Rowan, McIsaac had two more years of eligibility. He transferred during the 2021-2022 school year to Barton College, a Division II school in Wilson, North Carolina, about 40 miles east of Raleigh.
Already with an undergraduate degree, he is working on his master’s in kinesoiology.
The attraction to Barton was head coach Keith Gorman. McIsaac played for Gorman at Cumberland County. After leading the school to the national championship, Gorman was hired by Barton.
As a local note, Gorman is also the former head high school coach at Holy Spirit.
“I decided I wanted to play for Keith Gorman again,” McIsaac said.
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And play he did.
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And play he did.
This past season McIsaac started all 52 games for Barton, which finished 26-26. He played left field and second base. McIsaac batted .291 and led the team with 15 doubles. He also had three home runs, 45 RBI and a .374 on base percentage.
Barton obviously benefited by playing in a baseball-crazed town such as Millville, best known for future MLB Hall of Famer Mike Trout. In addition, Buddy Kennedy, a former high school teammate of McIsaac’s, spent time this year with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
While McIsaac has done a great job with his education, he is still keeping alive the hope of possibly playing professionally.
“It would be a dream,” he said. “I will just try to play the best that I can and whatever happens, happens.”
Even when the Tri-County season ends, McIsaac will still be playing plenty of baseball for the rest of the summer and fall. He begins classes on Aug. 22 and then the baseball team will begin workouts about a week later.
Still, he can’t get enough of the game and it has shown on many levels with his performance.
Author: Marc Narducci
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