Sinclair Tartan Pride outfielder Zach Stewart couldn\u2019t have planned his year any better.<\/p>\n
While making the most of his only year at the college, Stewart hit .381 and led the Tartan Pride in home runs (11) and RBIs (67), helping the team to 42-8 mark and reaching the NJCAA Region 12 Tournament for the fourth straight year. The highlight of Stewart’s season came against Owens Community College in the OCCAC Conference Championship game.<\/p>\n
With the Tartan Pride holding a three-run lead in the bottom of the sixth, Stewart hammered a 3-1 fastball over the fence for a grand slam. The blast sealed Sinclair\u2019s second straight OCCAC title and Stewart said it was even sweeter since it was against the college\u2019s main rival.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as I hit it, I knew it was gone,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of confrontation between us and Owens. They\u2019ve got some players who are pretty cocky and it just gets you fired up. When you hit a grand slam to pretty much seal the game, I got pretty fired up. I pimped the home run.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stewart finished the OCCAC tournament going 5-for-10 with 3 home runs and 9 RBIs.<\/p>\n
Making his way to Sinclair<\/strong><\/p>\n After Stewart graduated from Wayne High School in 2008, he received a scholarship from the University of Dayton. Stewart said the scholarship did not cover the entire cost of enrollment at UD, so he enrolled at Ohio Dominican University.<\/p>\n \u201cI realized after a year at ODU that I wanted to play (Division I baseball) and compete at a higher level,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cThat\u2019s when I contacted (coach Steve) Dintaman.\u201d<\/p>\n Because Stewart transferred to a junior college, he avoided having to sit out a year due to NCAA transfer rules.<\/p>\n Stewart said he\u2019s very happy with his decision to attend Sinclair because the season has been a memorable one and team chemistry is at an all-time high.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody gets along and there are no problems. That\u2019s real important and I think we\u2019ve done a good job with that,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cOver time we started to gel.\u201d<\/p>\n Onward to UD<\/strong><\/p>\n After a stellar season with the Tartan Pride, Stewart received a full scholarship to UD where he plans on being a fixture on the baseball diamond.<\/p>\n \u201c(UD) coach (Tony Vittorio) said he expects me to come in there and bring a solid impact,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cAll of my life it\u2019s been a goal and a dream of mine to play D-I baseball. To play it for the University of Dayton where I was born and raised is great.\u201d<\/p>\n Stewart said he appreciates his time at Sinclair because it has helped him get to where he wants to be.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a great experience (at Sinclair),\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t really know how it was going to be, but we\u2019ve put together one heck of a team and I couldn\u2019t have asked for a better year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sinclair Tartan Pride outfielder Zach Stewart couldn\u2019t have planned his year any better. While making the most of his only year at the college, Stewart hit .381 and led the Tartan Pride in home runs (11) and RBIs (67), helping the team to 42-8 mark and reaching the NJCAA Region 12 Tournament for the fourth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[55,1272,150,14,1224,978,1223],"class_list":["post-5009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-baseball","tag-joseph-stueve","tag-pride","tag-sinclair","tag-stewart","tag-tartan","tag-zach"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-1iN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5009"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5016,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5009\/revisions\/5016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}