Senior spotlight: Jesuit HS pitcher, OSU signee among top high school prospects leading into MLB draft

PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) - It was a perfect week for some high school baseball, but teams from around the Northwest were benched before any games were played.

FOX 12′s Nick Krupke has the latest senior spotlight with a star pitcher from Jesuit High School who won’t get a chance to defend a state title.

Pitch for the Oregon State Beavers or jump to the pros? That’s the decision now for Mick Abel as the big righty won’t get the chance to take the field even once with his fellow dozen seniors from Jesuit High.

“Wow. This isn’t going to happen anymore. This isn’t what normal is going to look like anymore,” Abel said.

Playing ball with some of his core buddies since the 1st grade, there will be no senior swan song for Abel and his Sader Nation brothers in arms.

“We’ve come together pretty well. We’ve kind of found a basis for our joy now that we don’t have baseball and we have just come together really nicely. It’s a true brotherhood,” he said.

Signed on to play for Mitch Canham at Oregon State, the Gatorade Player of the Year may never make it to Corvallis as Abel has been listed as the No. 1 high school prospect in the country leading into in July’s Major League Baseball draft.

“You look at all of the stuff that everyone says, rankings and whatever but none of that matters in the long run. None of those guys are drafting me, but I think from what I have talked to the scouts about, my in-home meetings and everything like that, I think I still have a pretty good shot at going,” Abel said.

Krupke asked, “How about your fellow seniors, those who don’t scholarship offers yet, this was going to be their year to showcase themselves. That’s when a lot of guys get offers from smaller division schools. Their senior year is their chance to have it all on tape and really come together.”

Abel said, “That’s another thing that’s really hard for me. For me, I have a future, I have Oregon State and I have potentially a professional career but some of my closest friends on the team, best friends in life… Knowing that they aren’t going to get that final chance to showcase their ability and show everybody what they really have in their last year in something they have been building up on forever, it’s tough to see what they are dealing with, compared to what I am.”

If you have a senior who deserves his or her time in the spotlight, reach out to nick.krupke@kptv.com.