Gaston College closes fall baseball drills with "Rhino World Series"

After four straight 40-win seasons with national rankings, it's clear that the bar is very high for coach Shohn Doty's Gaston College baseball program.

With fall 2025 drills completed earlier this week in the team's recent Rhino World Series, Doty feels his team has positioned itself to extend that streak to five years.

"I thought we had a really solid fall coming after what some folks might consider a down year," Doty said of his program after it went 41-15-1 last spring and finished the season as Region 10 runner-up. "From a talent standpoint, we're much better and I'm excited about where we're going to go."

Gaston College played a 20-game fall schedule that was capped by a hotly-contested three-game intrasquad series of one-run games. Assistant coach K.J. McAllister's team won 4-3 and 5-4 after assistant coach Kyler Johnston's team won 4-3 in the opener.

"This year's Rhinos World Series was probably the most competitive one we've had," Doty said. "We had a bad taste in our mouth after not playing great at Asheville in our last fall weekend before that so it was nice to get back out there one more time.
"I loved how competitive we were in the series. But we've still got some things that we've got to clean up."

During the fall, pitchers Cross Clayton (North Carolina A&T), Talan McConnell (Virginia Tech), Drake Purvis (Virginia Tech) and Brayden Hill (Charlotte) and shortstop David Nicks (College of Charleston) made college commitments and other players are still making visits and could make commitments before the Rhinos' start their 2026 regular season with a three-game series against Patrick & Henry Community College on Jan. 23 at Gastonia's Sims Legion Park.

"Overall, it was a good fall," Doty said. "Our highs have been really high. When we've played well, we've played really well. So I think we have a talented team that's comparable to two years ago when we had a lot of depth.
"But we want to continue to find consistency of play. And that'll be something we'll be pushing to carryover when we get back in here in January and get ready for the season."

Another wild card for the upcoming regular season is that nine pitching prospects dealing with injury did not throw in fall exhibition games but are working with the goal of being ready by January.

"We've got a good problem to have with some of the guys that were injured last year just hitting their stride in their throwing programs," Doty said. "I think it's going to create a lot of healthy competition."

Veteran returning All-Region 10 players Nicks, Chris Hendrickson, Joey Nicholson and Koy Swanson will be expected to be among the team leaders in the spring. And Doty was impressed by the fall performances from freshman designated hitter Macon Leppert, first baseman Caden Davidson and transfer pitcher Dalton Hazlett.

"Dalton Hazlett threw the ball really well in the Rhino World Series," Doty said. "He the MVP. He had an up and down fall but he finished strong."