AURORA | Through two days of Major League Baseball’s First-Year Player Draft, only one Colorado prospect has been selected and he hails from an Aurora prep program.
Ace right-handed pitcher Alec Willis, who recently graduated from Regis Jesuit High School, got the call Monday that the St. Louis Cardinals had taken him in the seventh round with the 211th overall pick.
The 6-foot-5, 220-pound Willis was MLB.com’s 130th-ranked prospect after a senior season in which he finished 3-1 with a 0.72 ERA and 54 strikeouts (against eight walks) in 29 innings pitcher. For his varsity career — which was limited to three seasons due to the coronavirus pandemic taking out his junior year — Willis tossed 47 1/3 innings for coach Matt Darr’s Raiders and finished 3-2 with a 1.04 ERA.
Willis is a University of Minnesota signee, but he now has a choice to make as to whether to play college baseball or sign to play professionally. According to MLB.com, the draft position Willis was taken in has a projected pick value of $211,500.
Willis’ selection continues a trend of Regis Jesuit products selected in the MLB Draft, a list that includes one player active in MLB in David Peterson, who pitches for the New York Mets.
Regis Jesuit’s list of draftees in the past decade-plus includes Peterson, Quin Cotton and Chris O’Dowd (who each went to college after they were drafted a first time and were drafted again, including Peterson in the first round in 2017), Reagan Todd, Bo and Brody Weiss, Peter Bayer, Andrew and Matt Schmidt, Brent Schwartz, Max George, Ty Blach and Cole Norton.
Courtney Oakes is Sentinel Colorado Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports