Teammates, cousins headed to Cleveland State
To say Max Owens and J.C. Armour are lifelong friends is something of an understatement.
Born less than week apart at the same hospital, the two cousins have literally grown up playing sports together, be it baseball, basketball or football, and that trend has continued for the past four years at Heritage High School.
It will continue for a while longer. The Generals’ seniors will team up again next baseball season, this time at Cleveland State (Tenn.) Community College after both signed on to play for the Cougars in front of a huge crowd of supporters at Heritage this past Wednesday.
For Owens, Signing Day was proof that his years of hard work have paid off.
“I’ve been playing ball since I was three of four years old,” he recalled. “I grew up on (baseball) and my dad played too, so I’ve always been playing. Today is just awesome.”
It was a sentiment shared by Armour.
“It feels great,” he said. “It feels like I’ve really accomplished something in my life. It’s always something I’ve wanted to do, just to be able to commit to a school for whatever sport I was going to play. But now that it’s baseball, I feel really good about it and I’m really happy about it.”
Through the first round of the state playoffs, Owens is 6-1 on the hill with 73 strikeouts in 51.2 innings with an ERA just over 2.00, while Armour has tossed 39 innings with 52 strikeouts and an ERA under 3.00. Both are projected as pitchers at the next level.
However, both have contributed offensively to the Generals’ 23-7 season. Armour has a double, a home run and 12 RBIs, while Owens is hitting over .360 with 10 doubles and a program single-season record 10 home runs. He currently has 40 RBIs.
Owens and Armour are the 10th and 11th Heritage players to sign with Cleveland State since in the Generals’ baseball program has been in existence.
Heritage head coach David Dinger, who also played collegiately at Cleveland State in the 1980’s said the duo is going to a “good, solid, established program”.
“Coach (Mike) Policastro does a great job up there,” he said. “He’s getting players loaded with potential, two 6-foot-4 kids that throw the ball hard. They’ve played three sports all their lives and now they’re going to be focusing all their attention on just one sport, so I think they have an unlimited amount of a potential for what they can do.
“They’re also great kids that come from great families and they’re fun to be around. It’s just two special kids they’re getting.”
Owens said he already knows and is friends with several students and athletes that currently attend Cleveland State.
“The coaches up there are great and I’m just looking forward to it,” he added. “I went up there on a visit and I really like the baseball field. I like how they run the program and they’re a really good team. They have great coaches and they really send a bunch of players off after two years to some really good schools, so I saw it as a great opportunity.
“Hopefully, I can offer them a good arm. I just want to go up there and do what I do...be effective and help out the team.”
Armour said he’ll bring a variety of pitches to Cleveland State and hopes to repay the Cougars with the confidence they showed while recruiting him.
“Cleveland State was the first one to offer me,” he explained. “I felt good about it once I went up there on a visit. I thought it was a very good campus that has something for me too.”
He added it made his decision easier knowing Owens was already on board.
“He committed first and then I got the call, so we are both really excited about it,” he said.
Former Heritage head coach Eric Beagles, who coached the pair for their first three seasons with the Generals, also played ball with
Dinger at Cleveland State back in the day.
“David and I both spend a lot of time on fundamentals in our practices and that’s what these kids have been taught the last four years,” he said. “We kind of structured our practices to get kids ready for (college) and David’s continued that this year, so it’s kind of set them up to be able to play at the next level and get these opportunities. I’m really excited for them.”
Armour plans to major in business, while Owens will study physical therapy. Both also hope to continue their playing careers somewhere else after Cleveland State.
Their signings give Heritage 40 college baseball signings in its 16 years of existence.