First Team<\/a>, has one year of eligibility remaining. He was a this season. Lee has signed to spend the summer with the Harrisonburg Turks in the Valley League. In 2021, while playing for the Woodstock River Bandits and representing the North team in the All-Star Game, he earned team MVP honors.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nLee graduated May 8 from EMU with a BA in recreation and sports management. He was honored by faculty in the Business and Leadership Program as outstanding senior within his major.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe following article was published in the May 17 <\/em>Daily News-Record.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n***<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jaylon Lee didn\u2019t grow up on the dirt of little league baseball fields. Instead he spent time inside Hampton Roads area bowling alleys with his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Newport News native picked up bowling at the age of three and ran with it. It was a family hobby and he continued to bowl through high school, playing on a local team. Lee wasn\u2019t bad at it either, earning scholarship money to continue throwing spares and strikes on a college team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lee didn\u2019t take it, though, instead settling for a different kind of strike \u2014 one that\u2019s thrown to him in the batter\u2019s box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jaylon Lee played for the Woodstock River Bandits in the Valley League in summer 2021. He was named the MVP for the winning North team at the VBL All-Star Game. (Photo by John Leonard)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cI figured I wanted to do something a little bit more fun,\u201d Lee said of choosing baseball over bowling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lee started playing baseball in high school, so he was relatively new to the sport when it came time for colleges to recruit him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He didn\u2019t garner an offer from any college programs, but Eastern Mennonite gave him a chance on the diamond. Lee has been a career .332 hitter in five seasons at the D-III university.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With one year of eligibility remaining, Lee decided to enter the transfer portal and James Madison came calling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It didn\u2019t take long for Lee to commit to the purple and gold. He was on a phone call with Dukes hitting coach Alex Guera, who offered him a spot on the team, and he took it on the spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen I went into the portal, I just knew from the jump if they offered, that would obviously be my new home,\u201d Lee said. \u201cIt was a go as soon as it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before Lee became a standout outfielder with EMU, he had to learn the basics of hitting since he didn\u2019t have a lot of baseball experience. Pitchers knew Lee had trouble with offspeed pitches, so they fired curveballs and sliders his way and he wasn\u2019t too comfortable in the box hitting those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
EMU head coach Adam Posey helped put together a plan for Lee to identify the spin on the ball, trying to fill in the development gaps that he had since he grew up bowling and playing football.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Posey first sat down with Lee and showed him video of different pitches before using a pitching machine to replicate the spin. The idea was to get as many reps as possible for Lee to get comfortable in the box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This past winter, the Royals batters used virtual reality to help train pitch identification. For Lee, that meant seeing as many breaking balls as he could and whether or not it would be a pitch to hit or take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe\u2019s special,\u201d Posey said. \u201cHe\u2019s built for the moment and you try to get out of his way after you give him a couple coaching points.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jaylon Lee sizes up a pitch during a game against DeSales University. (Photo by Scott Eyre\/EMU)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe work paid off for Lee, who hit a career-best .382 this season with EMU, belting 10 home runs and driving in a career-high 43 runs. Lee said after working on hitting offspeed, those are pitches he looks for in the batter\u2019s box rather than a fastball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lee spent time in the Valley Baseball League last summer facing pitchers from all over the country in the wood-bat summer league, an opportunity that almost didn\u2019t come to fruition. Posey called every team in the league, working to get Lee on a squad as a team\u2019s possible fourth outfielder or a bottom-of-the-lineup hitter. Most teams said no or were already full until Posey called the Woodstock River Bandits, who gave Lee a chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, that chance was all Lee needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lee surpassed Posey\u2019s expectations pretty quickly with the River Bandits, hitting .270 in the regular season with 10 multi-hit games en route to being selected to the league\u2019s all-star game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think the moment overwhelms him,\u201d Posey said. \u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s going to back down from much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Lee, he wasn\u2019t sure where he would fit in with the league\u2019s pitching, but he was looking for his pitches to hit. Once he started finding success, he realized it wasn\u2019t a fluke that he was hitting well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnce I finally started settling in, it did give me that boost of \u2018OK, I do belong on this level of play,\u2019\u201d Lee said. \u201cIt definitely did give me a confidence boost.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lee said the experience in the Valley League will help in his transition to JMU next season, seeing pitchers who are polished around the strike zone with faster velocity behind their pitches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He won\u2019t have to go far \u2014 about two miles \u2014 to spend his final collegiate season, but it\u2019s something that will resemble a full-circle moment for Lee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a high school senior, Lee attended a JMU baseball camp, where he first met the Dukes coaching staff. It was also the only college baseball camp that Lee ever attended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like I was destined to be at JMU,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before Lee strides into the box with a purple batting helmet on, he\u2019ll patrol the outfield at Veterans Memorial Park a little earlier than expected, but as a member of the Valley League\u2019s Harrisonburg Turks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lee will be back in the Valley League for the second consecutive summer, but this time around it wasn\u2019t Posey making the calls to get his outfielder on a team. It was the team calling Posey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harrisonburg head coach Bob Wease reached out in January to see if Lee would play for his club. He committed to play with the Turks soon after, but a few months later Lee made it official that he\u2019d be at Veterans Memorial Park next spring with the Dukes, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t a coincidence. This is what\u2019s meant to be at this time,\u201d Lee said. \u201cI know it took a long time, but this is where I\u2019m supposed to be now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
EMU baseball player Jaylon Lee announced yesterday that he will play for D-1 James Madison University next year. Lee, named May 13 as the 2022 All-ODAC First Team, has one ... read more about DN-R: EMU’s Lee takes unique path to JMU<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5176,17562],"tags":[],"feature":[17426],"class_list":["post-52193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baseball","category-digest","feature-myemu-feature"],"yoast_head":"\nDN-R: EMU's Lee takes unique path to JMU - EMU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2022\/dn-r-emus-lee-takes-unique-path-to-jmu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DN-R: EMU's Lee takes unique path to JMU - EMU News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"EMU baseball player Jaylon Lee announced yesterday that he will play for D-1 James Madison University next year. 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