Brownwood News – Zephyr High School 2020 graduate Tristan Petty has signed to play baseball at Howard Payne University. Petty is a right-handed pitcher with an 80-mph fastball, a circle change-up, and a good curve. Petty gets lots of strikeouts and says his curveball is his out pitch.
Petty has played select team baseball for the past several years, including Sharp-End Baseball in Austin, Buzz Lightning Baseball Academy in Waco, and this year Cane Southwest Baseball in Austin. He said last summer he threw three or four complete-game shutouts while playing for Buzz Lightning.
Petty is being used primarily as a reliever this year, and that’s what he thinks his role will be for the Yellow Jackets of Howard Payne. He described his pitching as the kind that keeps the batters off-balance, inducing light-contact ground balls and pop-ups. But he gets lots of strikeouts too.
During his high school career in Zephyr Petty also played football, basketball, golf, and track. Of those sports, golf was his favorite.
When asked why he decided to play for Howard Payne, Petty said he wanted to go to HPU anyway, and when they offered him a spot on the baseball team, that made the decision easy.
More than just a sports star, Tristan Petty is a scholar. He was Valedictorian of the Zephyr High School class of 2020, sporting a GPA of 3.95. While studying at ZHS and playing sports, he also took college-level dual credit classes from Ranger College and enters HPU with 50 hours of college credits to his name. Petty said he wants to study biology and medicine at Howard Payne, then go on to medical school and become an orthopedic surgeon.
As if all that is not enough, Tristan Petty was also involved in FFA. At the Brown County Youth Fair this year, in the Ag Mechanics division, he built a rocking chair made from the horns of Watusi cattle. He also built a picnic table with the frame made of Watusi horns and got first place in the Ag Mechanics show of the Austin youth fair.
Congratulations to Tristan Petty on great accomplishments in high school. He clearly has a bright future!
