10 Rockwall County baseball finalists named for inaugural Jett Williams Award

Ten finalists from Rockwall County high schools have been named for the first Jett Williams Award, a new baseball honor designed to crown the Rockwall County Gameday Baseball Player of the Year.

The award gives the county’s top baseball season a single focal point, but it also says something bigger about the talent base around Rockwall, Heath and Royse City. Rockwall County Gameday, which launched in October 2020, says it has raised more than $6,000 for booster clubs while supporting athletics at Rockwall, Rockwall-Heath, Royse City, Heritage Christian Academy and Dallas Christian.

The honor is named for Jett Williams, the Rockwall-Heath High School graduate whose rise has become one of the strongest baseball success stories to come out of the county. Born Nov. 3, 2003, in Dallas, Williams was selected 14th overall by the New York Mets in the 2022 MLB Draft and is listed by MLB.com as active with the Nashville Sounds in Triple-A in 2026.

Williams’ profile helps explain why this award carries weight locally. MLB records show he walked 104 times and stole 45 bases in 2023, a combination that pointed to elite plate discipline and speed. In 2025, he split time between Double-A Binghamton and Triple-A Syracuse before continuing his climb through the Mets organization.

That background gives the inaugural trophy a clear message: Rockwall County’s baseball standard is no longer measured only by high school wins and all-district selections, but by players who can keep advancing after graduation. The finalist pool reflects a countywide pipeline that still runs through Rockwall ISD and Rockwall-Heath, while also reaching private-school and neighboring programs that have helped widen the area’s baseball footprint.

By attaching Williams’ name to the annual baseball award, Rockwall County Gameday is linking present-day high school performance to one of the county’s most visible pro prospects. For a baseball-rich corner of North Texas, the inaugural award is less about a single season than the depth and credibility of the pipeline that produced it.