The year was 2005, and the Cary High baseball team had a pair of senior outfielders who were determined that their dreams of playing college and professional baseball weren’t going to be denied — but the odds weren’t in Andrew Wilson nor Cory Harrilchak’s favor to make either a reality.

Neither of the two friends were offered any scholarship money to play college baseball. Over the next four years they’d have to endure the riggors of playing in virtual anonymity, fighting for a roster spot, even a position change and repeated overlooks from major league and college squads alike.

During his senior year at Cary, Harrilchak weighed about 145 pounds, and was — as he admits — probably better at wrestling, where he finished second in the state his senior year. Like Harrilchak, Wilson found himself trying to convince a college team to take him rather than the usual recruiting process of a college trying to convince the player to join.

The two friends, who kept in touch throughout college, headed out in separate directions that summer, hoping to make their own way in the baseball world. But four years later, the pair met up in Cary to reminisce and to celebrate — both four-year college players were selected by the Atlanta Braves in June’s Major League Baseball Draft.

“We kind of talked about life and how exciting it is for us now that we’re both playing for the Braves and we’re both professional players,” Wilson said. “We just talked about ball and how not many people get the chance to do it.”

Both men have already started play for their respective Rookie League affiliates. Wilson is in Kissimmee, Fla. for the Gulf Coast Braves while Harrilchak is in Danville, Va. with the Danville Braves.

The road from the minors to the major league level is a narrow one that bottlenecks at the end. Few players ever get the opportunity to pass through, but both men have already hurdled several obstacles in getting to college ball.

Even after batting .480 his senior year, Harrilchak’s dad was still having to make calls to junior colleges, trying to get his son a tryout where he’d have to prove himself yet again. That final tryout came at Surry County Community College in Mount Airy, N.C., where Harrilchak spent his first two years of college playing almost non-stop.

“I played a lot of baseball. It helped me a lot, because if you go to a four-year school as a freshman you’ll redshirt and you won’t get many of at-bats your first two years,” Harrilchak said. “I spent two years playing every day and it helped me develop a lot.”

After two standout years at Surry County, Harrilchak began playing at Elon University, and the first year couldn’t have gone much better.

Harrilchak batted .410 on the season, becoming the first Elon player to bat over .400 in 20 years. During that time, he began his school record 86-game on-base streak. Yet somehow, Harrilchak — who was named to preseason All-American teams the following year — failed to be taken in any of the 50 rounds that year and went undrafted.

“You never know with the draft,” Harrilchak said. “I was pretty upset for a few days, but I’ve been kind of overlooked, as far my baseball talent. I feel like I could’ve gone to a big-time [college] out of high school. Even though I was smaller, I had all the tools to go. I just stayed within myself and kept working hard and everything just worked out this year.”

As a senior, Harrilchak batted .336 with 18 doubles, three triples and 16 home runs. He was named first-team All-Southern Conference after setting school records in runs in a season (79) at bats in a season (256) and finishing third in hits for a season (86).

All the hard work paid off when the centerfielder was taken in the 10th round of the draft, 418th overall. Wilson forced himself onto a college baseball roster, earning a walk-on spot as an outfielder at Liberty University.

But soon after arriving, Liberty’s coaches decided to move Wilson, who said he had pitched about 10 innings his senior year at Cary, to the bullpen as a pitcher. It was no easy transition, particularly at the Division I level.

“It took a lot of work, I would say it took a lot more work mentally than physically just because I always had a strong arm in the outfield,” Wilson said. “But mentally, that’s where I really had to make sure in order to get to the point where I was going to be drafted.”

Through his next four years, Wilson worked with Liberty’s coaches to become the team’s most dependable reliever his senior year, going 5-3 in his final year with the Flames, posting a 3.52 ERA in 64 innings pitched.

In the Big South Conference, Wilson was fifth in strikeouts (70). Wilson’s five saves were also tops for Liberty, as he averaged 9.84 strikeouts per nine innings.

All that — and a fastball that tops out at 93 miles per hour — was good enough for Wilson to be taken by Atlanta in the 36th round, 1,078th overall.

“I just improved pitching-wise and I had some great coaches at Liberty to teach me,” Wilson said. The two said they hope to continue proving people wrong, just as they did coming out of Cary. 

“Not many people believed in us when we were younger,” Wilson said. “So it’s neat to kind of prove them wrong and show everyone that we worked hard and we’ve gotten to this point where our dream of playing professional baseball is coming true.”

Harrilchak said he uses his experience as fuel to succeed in the Braves’ organization.

“It motivates me even more. There’s no better feeling than proving people wrong. It’s just going to motivate me to go out and play as hard as I can," Harrilchak said. “I know I can play and I just want everybody else to know and to see I can play. I’m going to try to make as many believers as I can.”