When Citizens Christian Academy starter Blake Bryant stared at his catcher, Skyler Woods, with an 0-2 count and two out in the seventh inning of Game 1 of the GIAA Class A state finals, more than a game was on the line.
Bryant was 108 pitches deep. While only five David Emanuel Academy players had reached base and the Patriots had a comfortable 5-0 lead, Bryant hadn’t had his best stuff. Yes, his fastball had hovered between 92 and 95, and his last three pitches had been 96, but it wasn’t a typical Blake Bryant performance. The weather was bad on May 28. The field was wet. It had been raining. The humidity was high.
The Eagles had made Bryant work harder than he was used to, yet he still had a two-hit, 11-strikeout shutout brewing. He had struck out the first two batters of the inning and was ahead 0-2 on the third Eagle.
The Patriots were one out away from being in complete control of a series that, if they won, would give them a second consecutive state title.
Pitch No. 109 was more than just a pitch. It symbolized a career, one of the most storied pitching careers in Coffee County baseball lore. He was nearing his 120-pitch limit. He wanted to end his high school pitching career with a complete game and, preferably, with a strikeout.
That’s what the fans wanted too.
Bryant looked in. He nodded in approval. Everyone knew what was coming. The fans knew it. The umpires knew it. The batter did too.
Bryant reared back and sent the ball to the plate. The batter took a cut but he had no chance. A career-best 97 mph on the last pitch of the game. Strike three. Game over. One step closer to another state championship.
“I was telling myself that this was my last ever inning in high school,” Bryant said. “I was thinking, ‘Why not just throw it as hard as I can and see what happens?’ The adrenaline was just running through me. I was pumped.”
The Patriots would go on to win Game 2 the next day behind starter Thomas Gentry and claim their second consecutive state title.
“Our goal was to win a championship,” he said. “I was very confident in this team’s ability to do that.”
Bryant has been a player people have been watching since he was 14 years old. As an eighth grader – yes, an eighth grader – he committed to Clemson. He was tall and lanky, and he was already throwing in the upper 80s. He kept improving and, just a couple of years later, it became very apparent that he was no ordinary pitcher.
“When he started playing 16U ball, he first hit 90 mph,” said Joe Bryant, who is Blake Bryant’s father and CCA’s pitching coach. “People were telling me, ‘You’ve got something special.’ He started throwing against better and better competition, and that’s when I saw him start to take a jump. He just kept getting taller too. That’s when I noticed it.”
Lots of players enter the conversation when they’re 14, 15, even 16 years old, but they’re not necessarily still in that conversation at 17 and 18. Blake Bryant was tall, he threw hard, and he was unfazed in pressure situations. The key, however, would be his improvement. Would he add velocity as his high school career progressed?
The answer to that question is, of course, another yes.
“Every year, he gained velocity,” Joe Bryant said. “I also told him my ultimate goal is for his chart to be on the rise. We never want to see a rise, fall, rise, fall. We wanted his chart to consistently and gradually go up. His first goal was to hit 90. He did that. Then he wanted to hit 93. He did that. Same for 95. His ultimate goal was to hit 97. He’s worked so hard behind the scenes. People don’t see that. He has confidence in himself, and other people have confidence in him too.”
Last season, Blake Bryant was 6-1 with a 1.29 ERA in 10 games. He threw 38 innings with 68 strikeouts and six walks. The Patriots went 23-7-2 and won a state title.
As bright as the spotlight was last year, it doesn’t compare to the microscope under which he played this season. All the major rankings and draft projections had him featured prominently from the first pitch of the season. In mid-March, Prep Baseball had him at No. 24 on its 2026 draft Prep 500 list. A week later, Perfect Game listed him at No. 47 on its 2026 Draft Board.
Prep Baseball Report’s Ian Smith wrote this about him in late March: “The Clemson commit has been making steady progression over the past years and now gaining top-50 pick helium. Lean, high-waisted 6-foot-5, 185 pounds with loads of projection remaining and athleticism to stick.”
Smith added that Blake Bryant was tagged with a few “best athlete in the state” designations due to his basketball skillset (more on that later), stating that “scouts were driving hours in the off-season to see Bryant play basketball.”
A few weeks ago, ESPN had Blake Bryant at No. 78. Most recently, Perfect Game put him at No. 60 in the July MLB Draft.
His stock has continued to rise because, quite simply, he hasn’t had a bad outing all year long. If you watched him pitch this season, you knew what you were going to get: no earned runs, a complete game or close to it, and double-digit strikeouts.
He finished the 2026 campaign 10-0 with a 0.22 ERA in 12 appearances. He threw 64 innings and struck out 141 to 13 walks. He allowed 16 hits and gave up three runs, two of which were earned. He was named GIAA Class A Pitcher of the Year and GIAA Region 6 Player of the Year.
It didn’t matter who he threw against; he was equally effective against GHSA competition as he was against GIAA schools. On March 21, the Patriots played the Charlton County Indians, an eventual Final Four playoff team. Blake Bryant threw a 97-pitch complete-game one-hitter with 17 strikeouts. Against Therrell High School on April 3, another GHSA playoff team, he went four innings and struck out eight in a 10-0 win. Blake Bryant, Sklyer Woods, and Gray McLean combined for a no-hitter in that game, which was played at Truist Park in Atlanta.
“The thing that impressed me was that he never had an outing when he didn’t deliver, you know?” Jeremy Coram, CCA head coach, said. “If you went to the ballpark and Blake was pitching, he struck out 12 or 15 and didn’t give up a run. That’s what separates him from everyone else.”
While no one disputes Blake Bryant’s baseball ability, at this stage it’s about much more than that. Everyone knows he can pitch. He has traveled the country and played in elite level showcase after showcase. The scouts have seen him throw. They’ve seen him play basketball. They know exactly what he can do on the field.
But there’s more to it than that.
“I’ve had all these phone conversations and answered all these questions from scouts, and not one of them has asked me about baseball,” Coram said. “Everything has been about his character. Can he handle getting punched in the gut and face the adversity that comes with professional baseball? Is he mature enough to go out on his own and be with maybe one or two English-speaking guys? This whole spring, it was about his character, his work ethic. If we spend money on this guy, is he going to adapt to our culture and be coachable? They asked some hard questions, but it was about more than just baseball. But he’s been an absolute pleasure to coach. As good of a baseball player as he is, he’s an even better person.”
July 11 is going to be a big day for Blake Bryant and his family. He is projected to go anywhere from late in the first round to the middle of the third round. Like most baseball players, his dream is to play professionally, but he isn’t ruling out Clemson either.
“I hope I do get drafted,” Blake Bryant said. “That would be a dream come true. But if not, Clemson is the route. I’m totally fine with that.”
Coram, however, doesn’t believe Blake Bryant will ever set foot on a college campus. The Clemson staff tend to agree.
“Clemson’s not expecting him,” Coram said. “They pretty much know. But they would love for him to be there.”
Blake Bryant. If this is the first time you’ve heard his name, don’t forget it. You’ll definitely be hearing it again.
Baseball Runs in the Family
That Blake Bryant would be a good baseball player was a foregone conclusion. He comes from a family of players who have played at the next level.
His father, Joe Bryant, pitched at then-South Georgia College before an injury derailed his career.
His brother, Phillip Bryant, also pitched at SGC and later at then-Piedmont College.
Cousin Peyton Bryant, a catcher, just finished at South Georgia State College and will continue his career at ABAC next year. He had a great freshman year but started this season with a hamstring injury that bothered him over the first half. Once he recovered, he had an All-Conference caliber second half and made the GCAA All-Tournament Team at the end of the season.
A 2-Sport Athlete
Blake Bryant is also an excellent basketball player. A three-year varsity starter, he averaged 10.7 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. He made All-State all three years and helped lead the Patriots to the state finals two years in a row.
