First-year Troy baseball coach Tyler Strunk felt that pitcher Dominic Holden “definitely stood out right off the bat as one of the leaders on the team.”
That leadership has also been apparent to Tribune readers, who voted Holden the Prep Athlete of the Week following an April 11 complete-game pitching performance against Kendrick.
The 5-foot-10 sophomore amassed 15 strikeouts and gave up just two hits in the 9-1 Whitepine League victory for the Trojans. He has since followed up with another big performance this past Saturday against Prairie of Cottonwood, throwing a 10-strikeout no-hitter.
“He’s got a lot of movement on his off-speed pitches,” Strunk said of Holden. “His two-seam is all over the place and then his slider is pretty unhittable right now. Everything he misses is down and away, which draws a lot of swing-and-misses.”
Holden, who also plays basketball for Troy, is “a character once you get to know him, but he’s not as outspoken as some of the other more flamboyant players on the team,” Strunk said.
“He’s definitely got a quiet confidence about him.”
Holden recalls that he got into baseball at around the age of 6 or 7, grew up playing with his friends. He aspires to help his team win a second consecutive Idaho Class 1A state title this year and enjoy postseason glory for another two seasons before hopefully going on to play at the collegiate level.
