Being ahead of schedule is nothing new for Brodie Johnston when it comes to baseball, but that doesn’t make the Ooltewah native’s latest achievement on the diamond any less impressive.
Just a year ago, Johnston was still starring on the Chattanooga prep scene for the Boyd Buchanan Buccaneers. This past weekend, the 19-year-old Vanderbilt freshman was named MVP of the Southeastern Conference tournament after his two-run homer helped the Commodores to a 3-2 victory against Ole Miss in the league championship game in Hoover, Alabama.
Johnston’s homer was a first-inning rocket off the all-caps SEC slogan — “JUST MEANS MORE” — on the padded wall in left field below the scoreboard at Hoover Met Stadium, and it staked the Commodores to a lead they would never lose.
Winning the league tournament for the toughest conference in college baseball has some clear rewards, and not only are the Commodores among the eight SEC teams hosting half of the four-team regionals this weekend as the NCAA tournament gets underway, they are the overall No. 1 seed for the 64-team field.
Johnston is a big reason why, as the 6-foot-3, 2023-pound third baseman leads Vanderbilt with 13 home runs, 53 RBIs and 110 total bases, but it wasn’t so long ago when he couldn’t wait for his dad to get home and play Wiffle ball with him and his brother in the front yard.