Personal Statement
My name is Noah Pyles. I am 16 years old and my birthday is March 31. I am a Junior at Christian Brothers High School (Top 50 Most Challenging High Schools) in Sacramento, California.
I worked hard to improve my grades during my sophomore year. I achieved a 3.79 GPA during my sophomore year, raising my overall GPA to 3.50. For UC/CSU schools my GPA is 3.75. I am taking challenging classes this year including Honors Chemistry, Honors French 3 and Pre-Calculus. I don't know what I will want to major in yet, but I do enjoy math and science. I also took the PSAT and scored an 1140 on the new test. My math score was at the 95th percentile. I am scheduled to take the ACT in September 2016 and the SAT in October 2016.
I want to go to a school that has a great campus atmosphere around both academics and athletics. I have really enjoyed my time on campus at Stanford, University of Texas, St. Mary's College & UC Davis. This summer we had the chance to stop by Westmont and UC Santa Barbara. I really liked them as well. These are the types of schools that I am interested in attending. I am open to going to school away from home but it needs to be a great fit. Mostly I am working hard to have the opportunity to get a great education and be a key part of a competitive baseball program.
I love to pitch, but I also play first base and can hit. My best pitch is a two seam fastball. It generates a lot of movement around the plate and makes it hard to hit. I also throw a four seam, slider, splitter, and circle change-up. Right now I am focused on my control and approach. My velocity is getting better as I improve my strength, mechanics and flexibility.
At the Perfect Game Series Tournament in Ft. Myers my fastball was verified at 87, with a range of 87-81. I get a lot of range on my fastball when I throw the two seam and four seam. I also hit 88 at my latest bull pen. At the Under Armour Southwest championships I recorded 94 on the run. I also got the top velocity from 1st to 3rd at the PG event by hitting 81 mph. Like I said, I love to hit. My exit velocity was recorded at 92 at both a PG and at the latest Under Armour event.
Fall 2016: I am going to play fall ball at my high school and I was invited to play with Nate Trosky at the Fall Classic in October. I plan on continuing to work on my grades and get in the weight room!
Summer 2016: I had a very busy summer playing for the Walbeck 2018 College Prep team, going to the UC Davis Camp, Stanford Camp and the PG Series Tournament. I was our ace and got to pitch twice in most of our tournaments, once in the first game and then in the last game. When you combine all of my outings I threw 37.1 innings. I am really proud of the fact that I met all of my goals this summer by 1) improving my velocity from low 80’s to mid-upper 80s 2) improved my strikes to balls ratio 3) installed a new off-speed (slider). My stats: 37.1 IP 21H 17BB 13R 8ER 53K 1.50 ERA and 1.02 WHIP 1.901 FIP .630 FPS 2.133 GO/FO and .164 BAA.
Spring 2016: Unfortunately my spring was cut short when I took a line drive to my left eye. I fractured my orbital socket and was out for the rest of the spring season.
Fall 2015, I was on the Team MaxBat National 16u team as a two way player at RHP/1B. I also play for the Walbeck Baseball Academy in the College Prep program as a two way player with my primary position as a RHP. I also played for both my high school team and the academy. I threw 16 innings over 5 games and had 27Ks, 18BB, 5ER, 9H with a BAA of .164. I have also helped my teams with my hitting BA .455. In addition to playing in some games I have been attending a 6 week Pitching Camp at UC Davis. This has been a great camp to help me work on both physical and mental parts of my game.
Spring 2015, I was one of two freshmen to be moved up to JV baseball last spring. I was a starting pitcher on JV and pitched in 10 of our 25 games as both a starter and a closer. Our record was 20-5 and we won our conference. I had a great season with the team. My record was 3 wins, 0 loses, and 1 save. I started the season as a closer but got to start 4 games as well. Over a total of 28 innings pitched I had 30K, 17BB, and an ERA of 1.25. Opposing batters only managed to get a .165 batting average.
