Knights Senior Standout Athlete Signs to Millikin
ALAH senior Wyatt Hilligoss signed his commitment to continue his baseball career and education at Millikin University at a reception held at the high on March 14. Wyatt is pictured here with his dad, Kevin, mom, Emily and brother Will.
Arthur Lovington Atwood Hammond High School is proud to announce that senior baseball student-athlete Wyatt Hilligoss will be committing to continue his athletic participation on the intercollegiate level at Millikin University.
Located in Decatur, Illinois, Millikin is a member school of the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) and competes at the NCAA Division III level. The baseball program is led by head coach Brandon Townsend. Coach Townsend is entering his 10th year of coaching the Big Blue and won the CCIW Coach of the Year in 2019. In 2021, he led the Big Blue to a record setting 31-16 record and went 20-12 in the CCIW. Townsend led the Big Blue to a CCIW Tournament Title and the school’s first ever trip to the NCAA Tournament. The Big Blue posted a 27-16 overall record and went 11-7 in the CCIW to finish in a three-way tie for second place in the conference standings last year.
Under Townsend’s guidance, the Big Blue baseball program has also excelled academically. In 2014-15 and in 2015-16, the baseball team had the highest-grade point average of any male sports team at Millikin. In 2017, 18 baseball players earned CCIW Academic All-Conference honors. Eleven players were honored in 2018, 14 were honored in 2019, 12 were honored in 2020, 14 were honored in 2021, and 15 players earned CCIW Academic All-conference honors in 2022.
Heading into his senior baseball season, Wyatt has been a three-year varsity letter winner for the Knights playing pitcher and infield. Wyatt’s personal baseball accolades include: LPC All-Conference Second Team pitcher as a sophomore, News-Gazette All-Area Honorable Mention as a sophomore, and Most Valuable Pitcher as a sophomore. Unfortunately, due to an injury, Wyatt was not able to participate in baseball during his junior year.
Wyatt has been a multi-sport athlete throughout his high school career and has also earned varsity letters in basketball. His personal basketball accolades include: 2019-2020 News-Gazette All Area Honorable Mention Team, 2021-2022 LPC All-Conference First Team, 2020-2021 News-Gazette All-Area Honorable Mention Team, 2021-2022 Herald & Review All-Area First Team, 2022-2023 St. Joe-Ogden Toyota Classic All-Tournament Team, 2022-2023 St. Teresa Holiday Tournament All-Tournament Team, and 2022-2023 unanimous LPC All-Conference First Team. He is also the leading scorer in Arthur Lovington Atwood Hammond High School history with 1,172 career points.
In addition to his athletic accomplishments, Wyatt has been a high honor roll student each of his four years at ALAH, is a member of the National Honor Society, student council, and FFA, is a freshman mentor, and has served as a tutor in the Math and Writing Center.
Wyatt is the son of Kevin and Emily Hilligoss and plans to major in Biology with a focus in pre-chiropractic at Millikin.
In honor of Wyatt’s accomplishments, Arthur Lovington Atwood Hammond High School hosted a reception on March 14 in the gymnasium at Arthur Lovington Atwood Hammond High School.
