Live coverage: State baseball finals at Greenbrier High
Can't make it to the game? Sports reporter Jeff Sentell will be blogging the action live.

It's hard to think of Jeff Rowland as a third wheel.

It's a tough concept. Maybe in the same vein as that George Harrison guy standing on stage with John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Rowland is leading Greenbrier in hitting with an average that's now close to .450. He will likely start in the Georgia Tech outfield next year. He's also the stalwart leadoff hitter on a team that faces Heritage today for the Class AAAA state championship.

But that's the deal when you play on a defending state champion team with all-everything pitchers such as junior Nolan Belcher and senior Brandon Cumpton.

Rowland even tries to aid his own dash from the spotlight.

"Why don't you write more about our lights-out pitchers?" he said. "We can't win without those guys. I can get five hits and we still can get beat by 10 runs if we don't have the pitching. We are where we are at because of our pitching. Period."

That's pure modesty.

"I've told several people (Jeff) Rowland is probably the best position player in the state," Marist coach Mike Strickland said. "I mean I haven't seen all the Class AAAA or AAA kids. But I'm not foolish enough to think there's a lot of kids in the state who can do all he does. He's a great baserunner who also plays with such a great sense of confidence."

Strickland said his team has faced Greenbrier six times over the past two years. Two of those were home runs off the Foley Field scoreboard in Athens, Ga.

"We may have gotten him out two times in those six games," he said. "I love his game. It's not so what you need to throw to get him out. It's how he adjusts when he knows what you are trying to do to get him out. He's hit balls all over the lot and out of the lot against us the last two years. If he's not the best position player in the state, he's definitely the most underrated then."

That reputation is built on hustle. Rowland's got a U-shaped scar on his right leg that says he only knows one speed.

That's as fast as he can go.

"I hit a car playing kickball when I was 11 years old," said Rowland, who can name six members of his family who played college or professional ball.

Rowland hit that parked car with his right leg.

"It was the day before my 12th birthday," he said. "I ended up seeing a big chunk of my leg ripped off. I think I had like 100-something stitches and a bunch of staples. I even saw bone."

Rowland was on his way to go to baseball practice and was in his full practice gear.

"I nailed it," he said. "It was a double I was trying to stretch into a triple."

He hardly noticed the sharp angle he was taking around first.

"It's called a banana angle," he said.

He paid little mind to the car. He was thinking about respect.

"I am all out when it comes to sports," he said. "I was playing against high school kids when I was in middle school. I was sure trying to show all those older kids I could play and I wasn't no kid."

When asked about what's important to him in life, he gives the straightest of answers.

"It's baseball and then girls," Rowland said. "Well, girl. My girlfriend might read this. No sense in getting her mad. After that, it's real close with hitting the weights and working out. Then it's fishing and hunting. Those are my deals. That is what I am all about."

It's refreshing to know he's also about academic achievement. Rowland carries a 3.65 grade point average.

"A lot of people don't know I bust my butt in school," he said. "I had to get my grades. I didn't figure out until 10th grade I needed to get my grades.

"From the end of my 10th-grade year to my last report card I didn't make nothing but A's," he said. "My GPA shot up. That got me into college as much as hitting a ball. I would have had a ... 4.0 GPA if I focused on my grades when I was younger instead of all the really, really pretty girls walking around."