Players train next generation of talent at 5-Tool Academy
The new 5-Tool Academy is a 24,000-squarefoot, do-it-all baseball and softball training facility inside Uptown Hot Springs, formerly Hot Springs Mall.
“We do a little bit of everything,” 5-Tool co-owner David Ashcraft said. “We have speed and agility training. We use HitTrax technology for analytics. We have pitching mounds and machines.”
The thing that makes husband-and-wife owners David and Stephanie Ashcraft unique in their business venture is they have chosen to hire local high school and college baseball and softball players to help them train the next generation of talent to come through Hot Springs.
“I think the biggest part of it is kids playing relate to those players,” David Ashcraft said. “Seeing how well they get along with an active player they come out a little bit more. They try a little harder and listen a little bit better.”
“I loved watching my kids play baseball and softball,” Stephanie Ashcraft said. “I enjoy working with my husband every day.”
The facility focuses on hitting, hitting for power, speed, throwing and fielding — the five tools necessary to be a successful ballplayer, hence the name.
“It has cost us a lot; we took out an SBA loan,” Stephanie Ashcraft said. “The mall was a huge help and they have been wonderful to work with. Our oldest daughter, Chloe, was really good at softball and played through high school.”
David Ashcraft credited his wife with selecting the name 5-Tool.
The staff includes senior Bismarck pitcher Ian Smith, who has an offer to play college baseball at the University of Arkansas Rich Mountain.
“Ian we have known for a long time,” David Ashcraft said. “I actually coach his younger brother on our travel team. He is a great young man. He does a little bit of everything for us. He works with individual players as well as training for himself.
David Ashcraft said he has “6-year-olds all the way up to college players” who train at 5-Tool. “We have a lot of dads that come in here. Our first night open we had a lot of dads up here with the pitching machine up to 90 mph and they had big smiles on their faces.”
Open since Aug. 12, 2022, 5-Tool has selffed pitching machines.
Another staff member is junior Champion Christian College outfielder Jacob Kimball, who David Ashcraft says has “quickly become family.”
“He is a fantastic young man. He loves baseball and is a straight-A student. He does front toss for warm-ups,” he said.
National Park softball pitcher Cameron Person, a freshman with a 4-1 record on the mound for the Nighthawks, 16 strikeouts and an ERA of 3.7 this season, “came to us looking for work,” David Ashcraft said.
“As soon as we met her we knew she was a great all-around person. She has been with us since Day One. She trains our athletes for
pitching and she does a little bit of utility work. We love being a part of what she has going on.”
A lefty, Person pitched the first no-hitter for the Nighthawks in an 11-0 victory against Mississippi Delta.
Also on the roster is NPC softball freshman third baseman Katie Branch, who sports a .344 batting average, 17 RBIs this season, scoring nine runs and three of them going for home runs.
“Katie is great,” Stephanie Ashcraft said. “She is an absolute joy and always has a smile on her face. She trains and instructs hitting lessons with the younger girls.”
Branch hit a grand slam against Connors State in the season opener, catapulting the Nighthawks to an 11-8 victory.
She is joined by freshman Logan Nies, who plays shortstop for the NPC softball team, batting .314 on the season, hitting two home runs and scoring 13 runs herself.
“Logan is great,” Stephanie Ashcraft said. “She does training, hitting and fielding work. She is awesome at it.”
Nies is ranked No. 10 in the nation for hitting doubles with six in 14 games.
National Park’s pitching coach, Dorrie Cormier, also gives pitching lessons for softball.
“We came in contact with Dorrie through NPC head softball coach Autumn Wyatt,” Stephanie Ashcraft said. “We wanted to get her in here to see everything and develop a relationship with them. Just having a professional coach coming in is amazing. Not a lot of people have that.”
The HitTrax technology the Ashcrafts have installed uses cameras and computers to measure exit velocity of individual players and helps them see every swing, to evaluate in-depth how a player is swinging.
“We discovered HitTrax in St. Louis,” David Ashcraft said. “Our oldest was invited up there and played for a team. We went into what I would call a ‘facility,’ in a gentleman’s backyard, he had made a storage building that had this technology in it. We were shocked and had never seen anything like it.”
Expansion plans include a covered fielding area, closing in some of the parking lot.
“Our plan is to add more batting cages,” Stephanie Ashcraft said. “We have more room in the back where we can knock out walls. There is room to grow into more speed and agility areas and possibly add a weight room.”
Small-business owners investing in young ballplayers in the Hot Springs area will keep the growth of baseball and softball fed with talent for years to come.
“We just want to provide a space where kids can just come in,” David Ashcraft said. “They can do this as just recreational or do serious training. We want to open this up to everybody.”