ROGERS -- Fifteen years after playing his last high school baseball game at Rogers High, Patrick Woodruff still holds several school records since the Mounties restarted the program in 1990.
Woodruff was a key cog for two of the Mounties' best baseball teams in 1998 and 1999. He still holds the Rogers single-season home run mark (12) he set as a junior in 1998, and that mark is still sixth best all-time in Arkansas. He also still holds the school single-season records for batting average (.500) and RBIs (54) as Rogers went 23-5 his junior season.
As a team in 1998, Rogers hit 54 home runs while winning the conference and conference tournament championships. That season also saw Rogers beat eventual state champion Springdale High three times.
"Our offense was so dominant," he said recently. "Being so dominant, we faced the best pitchers from every opponent we played. We faced a top pitcher every game."
Woodruff, 33, is currently a vice president at Bank of the Ozarks. After graduating from Rogers, Woodruff played two seasons at Westark College (now Arkansas-Fort Smith) before wearing an Arkansas baseball uniform for two seasons.
Woodruff and his wife, Meredith, started the I'm With Miller Foundation, which is named after their son, Miller McNeil Woodruff. Miller lived for just 87 days after being diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, the number one genetic killer of children younger than age two.
The foundation raises money in the fight against spinal muscular atrophy.
Sports on 07/06/2014