Jamison Funderburk, Hough’s 2-sport star, hunts baseball title

Hough High School will be one of the favorites in the N.C. 4A baseball playoffs, which begin this week, after winning its ninth conference title last week, sweeping a two-game series with rival Hopewell.

One of the standouts who clinched that title was Jamison Funderburk, who had four hits and seven RBIs in Wednesday’s 17-12 home victory that wrapped up the Queen City 3A/4A championship.

Prior to the game, Funderburk was one of seven players honored on “Senior Day” and introduced as a future Winston-Salem State football player.

Since WSSU has recently discussed resuming its baseball program for the first time since 2019, Funderburk is already fielding questions about the possibility of being a rare two-sport collegian.

“If he would not have committed to play college football, he would’ve played college baseball somewhere,” Hough coach Pete Jenkins said of the 6-foot, 220-pound Funderburk. “He’s an unbelievable athlete. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s fast and has so many tools who could easily play multiple sports in college.”

Funderburk says his parents, Erika and Allah Funderburk, have discussed the possibility of him pursuing two sports in college.

“My parents talk about it all the time,” he said. “That’s definitely a dream of mine to play college baseball. They’re actually thinking of starting a baseball team again. That would be big for me.”

In football, Funderburk was a driving force for a Huskies team that went 12-2 last fall and lost only to S.C. 5A Division II state champion Rock Hill Northwestern and N.C. 4A state champion Greensboro Grimsley.

He rushed for 381 yards and eight touchdowns, caught 11 passes for 94 yards and three touchdowns and finished his four-year career with 16 total touchdowns for coach DeShawn Baker’s team that won the school’s sixth conference title — and fifth in a row.

Next week’s baseball playoffs give Funderburk another chance at pursuing a state title.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “Losing in the final minutes of the game like we did in football at Grimsley, I definitely don’t want to feel that way again.”

The Huskies’ baseball team, which featured college signees Tyler Baird (Vanderbilt), Thomas Bass (Concord, W.Va.) and Jaxon Keeling (Queens) and college commitment Jaxon Matthews (Clemson), enters the postseason with the momentum of dethroning Hopewell as two-time outright league champion.

“We feel good about coming out to get two big wins over Hopewell after they had beaten us for two straight years and getting this conference championship feels really good,” said Funderburk, whose team won 12-6 in 13 innings at Hopewell on Monday and 17-12 at home Wednesday to wrap up the title. “I feel really good about where we are, especially after beating that team twice in a row and scoring as many runs as we scored.

“I know we’re going to go into the playoffs strong.”