GSC Baseball All-Decade Team
SEARCY – They hit from opposite sides of the plate, they both hit home runs with regularity, and both Justin Cone and Adam Darby earned Gulf South Conference 1st Team All-Decade honors Thursday. Joining them on the 2nd Team was former Bison left-handed pitcher Justin Phillips.
Cone, a native of Fort Worth, Texas, often went to the plate wearing Dickies work gloves instead of traditional batting gloves. The gloves worked, as Cone blasted a school-record 47 home runs, the fourth-highest total in the history of the GSC. He earned All-Region honors in 2005 and was a three-time All-GSC honoree.
As a freshman, Cone captured GSC Tournament Most Outstanding Player honors in 2002. He holds Harding's records for hits (219), RBI (198) and total bases (407). In 194 career games, he hit for a .363 average. Cone also pitched for the Bisons, compiling a 9-5 career record with a 3.60 ERA in 34 career appearances.
With one of the best-looking left-handed swings in program history, Darby punished opposing pitchers. In his three-year career, Darby hit .377 with 27 home runs and 153 RBI. In 2009, he hit .426 with a Harding-record 16 home runs, 64 RBI and 18 stolen bases to become the first Harding position player to earn NCAA All-America honors. A native of Jackson, Tenn., Darby was 1st Team All-GSC in 2007 and 2009. He holds the Harding single-season records for hits (80 in 2009), home runs (16 in 2009), RBI (64 in 2009) and total bases (144 in 2009).
Phillips, a native of Waco, Texas, had the most dominant season of any Harding pitcher this decade in 2007. That season, the lefty went 10-3 with a 1.21 ERA. He struck out 121 batters in 96 1/3 innings in becoming Harding's first-ever All-America pitcher. He led the NCAA in strikeouts and ranked second nationally in ERA. Phillips holds Harding's career records in ERA (2.08), opponent batting average (.194) and shutouts (6) and ranks third in strikeouts (199) despite pitching only two seasons.
