Nathan Camp opts for the Ragin’ Cajuns

Another Ringgold High baseball player recently added his name to the long and storied list of Tigers who have gone on to play at the next level.

Senior Nathan Camp committed this past weekend to play for the Ragin’ Cajuns of NCAA Division I University of Louisiana-Lafayette after taking an official visit to the school with his parents.

“The campus is really nice, but that’s not the main reason I want to go there,” he explained. “(The coaching staff) is looking for players who are scrappy and work hard. I’m not the biggest guy, so I have to be scrappy, and when they told me what (type of players) they were looking for, I knew that it was the place for me.”

Camp has been one of the leaders for the Blue-and-White the past two seasons. A twotime 6-AAA All-Region selection, he hit .355 as a junior with a .455 on-base percentage. He finished the season with four homers, 16 stolen bases and 28 RBIs as Ringgold went 29-8, won the region title and advanced to the Elite Eight in the state playoffs.

On the mound, Camp went 7-2 and with a 1.96 ERA and 56 strikeouts in 55 innings pitched. As an infielder, he ended the year with a .980 fielding percentage.

He said ULL was the first school to show any real interest in him.

“I have been talking to them for about a year,” he said. “They kind of disappeared for a while, but then one of the (assistant) coaches all a sudden showed up at one of my games. He said he thought I would have committed to somewhere else already, but when I told him I hadn’t, he said he needed to jump all over me.”

Camp, who has been playing ball nearly his entire life, said he dreamed about playing in college all his life, but it wasn’t until he was about 15 or 16 years old when he first began to think that Division I ball could be a reality for him.

He said ULL is looking at him as

a middle infielder, although he added that he could also see some time on the mound.

Camp played in the WWBA 17U National Championships in Cartersville earlier this summer for Atlantabased DRB Elite and

earned All-Tournament honors as a pitcher, going 1-0 with a 0.00 ERA. He struck out six, walked three and allowed just two hits in four innings of work.

The Ragin’ Cajuns went 35-21-1 last season. They lost to Georgia Southern in the first round of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament.