Baseball | 2/24/2023 1:53:00 PM

Mt. Pleasant, SC – With just six years of history, Oceanside Collegiate Academy alums are enjoying tremendous success in college athletics in multiple sports all over the country.

Perhaps the best known of those athletic standouts came from the first class. Sam Hartman led the first Landsharks football team and then went on to have a record-setting career at Wake Forest University. His accomplishments have been well-documented. Among the most recent are:

• The 2022 Brian Piccolo Award winner as the most courageous player in the ACC
• Gasparilla Bowl MVP
• Manning Award finalist
• Davey O'Brien Award semifinalist

Hartman finished his career with the Demon Deacons with 12,967 yards passing, second best in ACC history, with an ACC record 110 touchdown passes. He'll have a tremendous opportunity to expand his resume next season as the starting quarterback at Notre Dame, where he has enrolled in grad school.

But Hartman is far from the only former Oceanside Collegiate Academy student-athlete who is excelling. Here are some others who are performing at a very high level this year.

Ethan Baly is a sophomore on the men's tennis team at North Carolina A&T University. In the fall season, Bal

y captured the title in his draw at the Elon Invitational. He defeated a teammate in straight sets to win the event, his fourth match in three days. He opened the tournament with a hard-fought win over an opponent from North Carolina Central. He then had to battle back after dropping his opening set to defeat his second-round opponent from UNC Greensboro in a third set. He advanced to the tournament final with a straight set win over an opponent from Queens University.

"It was a great experience from start to finish," Baly said. "Coming from last year, not having my best results, and winning my draw this year, was a great experience. It was great to be able to play my teammate in the finals."

Baly is also achieving at a high-level academically, having recently been presented with Lewis and Elizabeth Dowdy Scholarship, which covers his tuition, books, fees as well as room & board, covering his entire undergraduate experience at NC A&T.

Baly and the Aggies open their spring championship season this Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 25-26, at home against Methodist University and Shaw University.

Another recent OCA graduate, Emma Schimpf, has gotten her college career off to a tremendous start at the College of Charleston. After earning Colonial Athletic Association Player of the Year honors as a freshman while leading the Cougars' women's golf team with a 72.67 scoring average, she has earned CAA Golfer of the Week honors five times already this year.

Most recently she tied the school record with an 11-under par total of 205 at the UCF Challenge to open the spring season. She helped the Cougars tie the program record for a 54-hole event with a score of 845 (-19). Schimpf is currently ranked 12th in the nation according to Golfstat.com, making her the highest ranked player in the country from outside the power five conferences.

Schimpf and her teammates will be back in action on Feb. 26-27 at the Westbrook Invitational in Peoria, AZ.

Overall, there are more than 70 former Oceanside students listed on college rosters around the nation and at least 10 have already completed undergraduate degrees and have entered the work force or are pursuing post-graduate studies. Here are a few more who are excelling.

• Jordan Bartemeyer is making an impact as a defensive specialist for the volleyball team at Lynchburg where she has accumulated 446 digs (2.82 per set) over two season to go with 51 set assists.
• Kayla Bartemeyer is also enjoying success on the links as a member of the women's golf team at Charlotte. She has posted a 78.06 scoring average over 36 rounds of competition.
• Joey Boylston is a junior member of the lacrosse team at the University of Utah, where he has been a starter on defense for the Utes since the day he arrived on campus. He has recovered 42 ground balls and forced 17 turnovers in his career, and he has twice been named to the Pac-12 Academic Honor Roll.
• Kasey Bronco is a senior member of the Lander Bearcats women's lacrosse team. Entering her final year she has played in 72 games and scored 34 goals with nine assists.
• Zach Champagne saw action in all 10 games for Presbyterian last fall as the Blue Hose long snapper.
• Thaddeus Dennis has started 24 of 42 games over three seasons on the men's soccer team at Wofford. As a midfielder he has scored three goals and posted four assists while averaging better than 52 minutes of playing time per game.
• Kendal Chunn jumped right into the deep end of the pool at Georgia Tech, winning the 200-meter individual medley in each of her first two collegiate swim meets.
• Will Gause started all 10 games during the past season at right tackle at Denison.
• Taylor Hills is putting her stamp on the volleyball program at Coker University where she has averaged 1.63 kills and 1.27 digs per set over her first two seasons.
• Nick Hyde is in his junior season at Western Carolina where he is a pitcher for the Catamounts. He has 43 career appearances, posting a 2-5 record with a save and 54 strikeouts.
• Grace Isaacs made an immediate impact on the swim team at Liberty University, earning a conference title in the 400-meter individual medley as a freshman. She set school records in that event as well as the 200-meter butterfly, helping the Flames to consecutive league titles.
• Kat Lyman is a redshirt junior member of the tennis team at Xavier University in Cincinnati. After beginning her collegiate career at West Virginia, where she won 11 matches – 6-2 in singles and 5-3 in doubles – during the Covid shortened year, she moved on to play for the Musketeers, earning second team All-Big East honors during the 2020-21 season. She helped Xavier to a Big East title last spring by posting marks of 11-8 in both singles and doubles.
• Gibson Marsh closed out his football career at Newberry last fall after serving as the Wolves full-time punter for two seasons. He posted a 38.0-yard average last fall of 40 punts.
• Colin Reich is in his final season as a member of the men's lacrosse team at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, where he is a starting midfielder. He scored 23 points last spring on eight goals and 15 assists and has scored four points in the Hawks' first two games this spring.
• Rachel Rich is in her third year as a member of the women's golf team at Western Kentucky where she has played in 25 events so far in her career with a scoring average of 76.2 over 76 rounds of competition.
• Emma Smith has also been a start on the tennis court, earning ITA All-America honors in 2021 at Sewanee University. She has a 26-11 career singles record heading into the 2023 season.
• Emma-Grace Spach is a graduate student at the University of Lynchburg. As a member of the Hornets' swim team, she finished her collegiate career with times ranked among the top 10 in school history in four different race categories.
• Marco Vlahos played in nine games for the Erskine College soccer team last fall, starting five as a midfielder.

About Oceanside Collegiate Academy: Oceanside Collegiate Academy (OCA), located in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., serves high school students in a safe, small and family-centered setting. Our students seek the opportunity and challenge of rigorous curriculum, high academic standards and elite athletics while earning up to two years of college credit. OCA serves students in grades 9-12 using an honors curriculum in 9th and 10 grades with a dual enrollment curriculum in 11th and 12th grades

Learn more about OCA by visiting our website at OceansideCollegiateAcademy.org and by following us on social media on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. For video content, visit our YouTube channel.