POCATELLO — When Highland baseball faced a crisis and needed someone to step up last spring, Dalton Jones took the ball and went to the mound.

“He was our horse last season on the mound,” Highland coach Christian Colonel said. “One of our pitchers was hurt all year, so he stepped up and was our No. 1. ... He just kind of took the bull by the horns last year and led us to a district championship.”

That attitude and experience is why Colonel thinks Jones will be a good fit at Walla Walla Community College.

The long-haired outfielder/pitcher signed with the Northwest Athletic Conference program on Thursday afternoon during a ceremony at Highland’s media center.

“It’s kind of surreal because I’ve been dreaming of this moment since I was a little kid,” Jones said. “I’ve always wanted to play some kind of college sport, whether it was football or baseball. ... It’s nice to know that all the work paid off.”

Jones, a senior at Highland, had interest from several other schools in Washington and Oregon, as well as from Montana State-Billings.

“Out of all the colleges that I had talked to, Walla Walla just seemed like a really great fit, and the right option for me,” Jones said. “I’m just looking forward to the competition, taking it to the next step.”

As a junior in 2019, Jones was the ace of Highland’s district championship team, starting 10 of the team’s 27 games and throwing 51 1/3 innings with a 3.15 ERA.

He threw a complete game in the district championship game, giving up one run to clinch the victory.

Despite his pitching successes, he’s more likely to be an outfielder at Walla Walla.

“They want athletes, they want good baseball players, they want hard workers, and that’s what they’re getting in Dalton Jones,” Colonel said. “They might have him do two-way (pitching and hitting), but I think he’s a center fielder, left fielder. He has a great outfield arm, he can run down any ball, and he can hit.”

Jones acknowledged the hard work that went into making his signing a reality.

“It’s countless hours of work, months and months out of the year,” Jones said. “It was a sacrifice of my time, and a sacrifice of my parents’ time and all their money. I just can’t really thank them enough for that.”

It wasn’t always an easy journey, but Jones stuck with it. And after one more season at Highland — “I’m trying to get up on (Highland’s record) wall, both for a state (championship) and individually,” Jones said — he’ll finally get to fulfill his childhood dream.

“Along the ride, there have been doubts, because everybody has bad years, bad games, whatever it is,” Jones said. “And that can really get to you, especially in a sport as mental as baseball. But I think overall, I knew that, as long as I worked hard, I could get there in the end.”