Draughn senior baseball player Tate Jensen on Thursday signed with Appalachian State University. Also seated alongside Jensen (from left to right) are his father Yates, mother Tammy, and brother Trey. Standing (from left) are DHS head baseball coach Kenny Stephens, Jensen’s travel coach Grant Rembert, and DHS assistant principal Shawn Yambor.
Draughn’s baseball program held a special on-campus signing ceremony in the school theater on Thursday morning as a pair of prolific Wildcats seniors announced their collegiate plans in the sport.
After verbally committing last month, Griffin Stephens on Thursday signed with NCAA Division II Young Harris College in Georgia. And after a recruiting visit to Boone over the weekend, Tate Jensen will be an Appalachian State University Mountaineer, he decided the day before.
Jensen is a two-time conference pitcher of the year who was named conference and county player of the year this past spring as a junior, one year after being named 1A state player of the year.
This past season, Jensen led all Burke County hitters in hits (31), runs (35), RBIs (26), doubles (nine), and home runs (eight), and the left-hander led all county pitchers with 106 strikeouts.
He also hit for a .564 average with a .724 on-base percentage and a 1.200 slugging percentage, stole 12 bases, walked more than three times as much as he struck out (29 walks, nine strikeouts), and on the mound, won seven games with a 1.61 ERA.
Jensen — who plays outfield when not pitching at DHS — said he expects to pitch and serve as a designated hitter at App State, whom he chose over Coastal Carolina and Virginia Tech after having visited those campuses the week before.
“I just really like what their coach valued, putting emphasis on more of being a good person instead of being a good baseball player,” Jensen said. “That’s really what his main focus was. And the facilities were really nice, and it’s close to home. It’s where both my parents went, and it’s just somewhere I wanted to go.
“I have a lot of friends going there, and they’ve had just a bunch of good things to say about it, so I was really excited to hear what they said about it.”
Jensen said he plans to major in exercise science. He said he wanted to “thank my parents and my teammates, my family for everything they’ve done to get me where I need to be.”
Draughn senior baseball player Griffin Stephens on Thursday signed with Young Harris College. Also pictured on the front row are Stephens’ sister, Parker (left), and his mother, Becca (right). Standing (from left to right) are Draughn principal Charles Williams, assistant principal Shawn Yambor, Wildcats head baseball coach and Stephens’ father Kenny Stephens, assistant coach Yates Jensen, and Draughn athletic director Eric Shehan.
Stephens, meanwhile, visited the Young Harris campus in early October. He chose Young Harris over N.C. Wesleyan and Pfeiffer.
“It was awesome, beautiful campus right on the lake,” Stephens said. “It was a really good experience. I loved it up there right in the north Georgia mountains, it’s basically in North Carolina, right on the line.
“They have the field I wanted to pursue. They have a law and public policy program, so that was big. Cost was big, that it wasn’t going to be a ton to go to college. And then just overall, it’s just a really nice kind of small school fit for me, and I just really liked that.”
As a junior, Stephens — who plays infield when not pitching — was named all-county and all-conference as he hit for a .288 average with one home run, three doubles, 16 RBIs, 14 runs, and three stolen bases. From the mound, he led the Wildcats with three saves while posting a 3-1 record, a 2.76 ERA, and 37 strikeouts in 10 pitching appearances spanning 25 1/3 innings.
“I just want to thank my family, my teammates, my dad, because he’s both my coach and my dad, just everyone who’s been able to help me get to this point, and my lord and savior,” Stephens said.
Draughn head coach Kenny Stephens said, “these two are better men than they are just players, and that’s what makes it great.”
“Getting to watch these kids from when they were 8 years old to 17, 18 years old … from where they were to where they are now, it is amazing,” he added. “I got to coach these two from machine pitch now to their senior year of high school, which kind of gets you emotional.
“It’s great to see these guys get to live out a dream and be the 7-8 percent of high school athletes that play at the next level, it’s awesome.”
Young Harris finished 41-15 overall, including 22-8 in the D-II Conference Carolinas Conference last spring, reaching the championship game of the NCAA Tournament Southeast Regionals.
App State posted a 33-21-1 overall mark in 2024, finishing 16-13-1 in Sun Belt Conference action.
But before leaving Wildcat Country, Jensen and Stephens have some unfinished business. They’ve played on three straight league title squads, the last two years advancing to the fourth and third round of the state playoffs, respectively.
“I have some personal goals, I want to set some records here of course,” Jensen said. “For team goals, I want us to win the fourth straight conference championship and hopefully make a run at the state title.”
Griffin Stephens added: “We want to win our conference championship and then we want to go win a state championship this year. End it on a bang.”
Paul Schenkel can be reached at 828-445-8595 or paul@thepaper.media.
