If Southern Miss redshirt freshman Will McGillis knew what he knows now, he doesn’t think he would have gotten out while hitting in high school The former PCS Bobcat rarely got out as it was, but the knowledge he’s picked up with Southern Miss hitting coach Chad Caillet has improved his approach at the plate.
“Me and the guys talk about it a lot,” McGillis said. “If we had the information that coach Caillet has given us as hitters here when we were in high school, we would have never have gotten out. There’s so much information that coach Caillet knows and feeds us that it’s amazing.”
That thought is scary because McGillis was already hard to get out in high school. As a junior, he hit .415 with four home runs and 35 RBI, but he missed most of his senior season due to a knee injury. When he came back the last few weeks of the season, he picked up right where he left off at the plate. In 16 games, he had a batting average of .500 and an on-base percentage of .639 with seven homers and 25 RBI.
At Southern Miss, coach Scott Berry has been impressed with McGillis’ bat. Berry has been surprised, actually.
“The thing with Will that has been surprising is his bat and his power,” the Southern Miss skipper said. “I didn’t realize that he had that much power, but he does.”
McGillis is expected to challenge for playing time at shortstop this season, and Berry sees him as a legitimate option at the position. Senior Storme Cooper will most likely begin the season at short, but McGillis will get his shot at some point his season.
Because of his injury, and redshirting last season, McGillis hasn’t played that much baseball since his 2016 high school junior season. He did play summer ball in Bellingham, Washington, last summer, but he expects to pick up right where he left off when he sees the field at Pete Taylor Park for the first time.
“I think it’s just like riding a bike,” he said. “Baseball is baseball, and if anything, it’s to my advantage, because I can speed up faster. I can pick up things from guys who have been playing a little more.”
McGillis didn’t know he was going to be redshirted until the opening weekend last season, but he had nothing but positive experiences while watching his teammates win the conference regular season and tournament title.
“The only negative would just be not being able to be on the field, but the positives definitely outweigh the negative,” he said.
While he redshirted, he sat back and watched two-starter LeeMarcus Boyd play shortstop, as the former Golden Eagle took McGillis under his wing. He’s also allowed the footsteps of redshirt junior Matt Guidry and Cooper, who both play in the middle of the infield.
“LeeBo was great,” McGillis said. “Being a shortstop, he gave me tidbits and always helping me out. He was coaching me and kind of being like a fourth coach, along with the coaching staff.”
While he’s learning how to handle himself on the baseball diamond by players who have been there before, Caillet and McGillis have been working on the young shortstop’s approach at the plate.
“It blows my mind with how much better you can get with this information at the college level,” McGillis said. “There’s always more to learn, and it’s pretty fun to learn more about your own swing and about your approach at the plate.”
McGillis called the hitting information he’s learning “next-level stuff,” and it’s technique he didn’t understand a few years ago. The biggest knowledge he’s gained was how his body sequenced through a swing and what his lower body needs to do. He’s reading the approaches of college pitchers better and understanding what pitch could be coming next.
“One thing you have in him, what he lacks in ability is offset by his baseball IQ and his ability to understand how to play the game, anticipate the game and be ahead of the game,” Berry said.
