Bishop High School’s Carl Huizar (second from right) recently signed his letter of commitment to play baseball with the Laredo Community College ‘Palominos’ next year. Sitting with Huizar (left to right) are Father Genaro, Coach Nathan Borden and Mother Carmela. Standing behind them is LCC Assistant Coach Jose Campos. Bishop High School’s Carl Huizar signed his commitment letter, this past Thursday, to play baseball with the Laredo Community College ‘Palominos’ next year. The recent high school graduate signed his name on the dotted line with his parents Genaro and Carmela, Badger skipper Nathan Borden and LCC Assistant Coach Jose Campos alongside him during a brief ceremony held at the high school gym.

“It is exciting and a great opportunity for me,” Huizar said afterwards. “Hopefully good things will happen out of this and I cannot wait to play.”

Now the young Badger prepares to spread his wings and fly from the nest.

“Of course I am going to miss Bishop, but I will come back to visit my family,” Huizar said. “The whole Bishop baseball team these past years has been family to me and I love every one of my high school teammates. I wish I could still play with them but I have a whole new family to play with now.”

After a successful 2010 season, Huizar was honored as District 32- 2A’s Offensive Player of the Year. As a hitter in his senior year, Huizar hit .490, brought in 33 runs and was a solid presence at first base.

As a pitcher (during his junior and senior campaigns combined) Huizar went 16- 6, struck out 261 batters and had an earned run average of 1.34.

This past spring, the Badgers went 23-11-1 overall, finished in third place in 32-2A with an 8-4 record and advanced all the way to the Region IV semifinals.

Coach Borden attributed a lot of Bishop’s success to Huizar.

“Not only in his leadership at the plate and on the mound, but Carl has just been a huge overall competitor for us,” Borden said. “He has helped us to always compete at the highest level against everybody in the state. You can’t replace someone like Carl, so we’ll just have to build another pitcher, batter and first baseman.

Coach Campos anticipates Huizar to eventually become one of the Palominos’ premier hurlers.

“He throws real hard as a lefty and that will make him a big asset on our team,” Campos said. “His pitches have been clocked in the 80’s and 90’s and that in itself shows potential for the major leagues. We’re expecting Carl to make a major impact on our team and in our conference.”

The Palominos will look to Huizar to help them compete in a very formidable conference.

“Laredo Community College plays in the toughest conference in junior college baseball,” Campos said. “We play teams from as far away as San Jacinto, Galveston, Blinn and Wharton College. One of our conference teams is always a representative in the national tournament – some have even won it - and we’re hoping Carl comes in with his maturity level and produces big numbers for us.”