Kent State of Mind: Brody & Peyton Williams
2/11/2026 6:04:00 PM | Baseball
Kent State catcher Brody Williams and pitcher Peyton Williams joined Andrea Filote for the Kent State of Mind Series to discuss their journeys from Kentucky to Kent State.
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AF: This is Kent State of Mind. I'm Andrea Filote, and joining me today are Peyton and Brody Williams. Brody, you committed to Kent first. What made you decide to come here?
BW: I, uh, had some connections through one of my travel ball coaches that I played with over the summer. He knew the recruiting coordinator here, who was Barrett Serrato at the time, and we kind of just got connected that way. It was all, it happened like right before our high school season got cancelled for Covid, so that kind of put a hitch in things. But after we started playing in the summer, I got to know all the coaches through FaceTime, really. And then I got to come up here over the summer and kind of see everything without being on an official visit.
AF: Peyton, did Brody influence your decision at all to come here?
PW: A little bit, I would say it was more just the program here as a winning program, and I just wanted to win and come up here. And he had told me a little bit about what the guys were like, what the coaches were like. I'd say that drew me more here than more so than him being here.
AF: Was playing together always the goal, or did it just work out that way?
BW: No, I had no idea that we would get to play together after high school. We got to play one year of high school together, but after that, I kind of figured we would go our separate ways.
PW: Yeah. I never thought that we'd actually get to play together again.
AF: If you weren't playing baseball, what do you think you'd be doing instead?
BW: I would be in school somewhere, but it probably wouldn't be in Northeast Ohio, eight hours away from home.
PW: I'd say the same for me. I probably would be back home doing something. I don't know, doing school somewhere.
AF: Tell us about your brother's dynamic. Were you guys always connected at the hip growing up?
BW: Yes, but we were enemies for a while. I was eight to fifteen. We'd like to pick on each other, or I like to pick on him. But, uh, honestly, when Covid happened, all we had was each other. So after that, we kind of got a lot closer and didn't fight as much. I'd say we still had some fights.
PW: But we're yet to have one up here, so.
BW: Yeah, that's true. We'll see.
AF: Well, now that you mended your relationship, what does it mean to you guys to finally get to play together again?
BW: It's really cool. I think a lot of people ask that, and I don't. I don't have the right words to put on it. I mean, I have I've played with so many guys up here and I would consider them all my brothers. But having one that I grew up with up here with me is pretty neat.
AF: Can you tell me a little bit about your pitcher and catcher relationship?
BW: Well, he hasn't been pitching for very long, so it's been about a year of me being a catcher and him a pitcher. So I got to catch some of his bullpens this summer. And other than that, it's been pretty short-lived.
PW: He likes to yell at me when I mess something up, or if I spike one and it hits him. He really gets onto me. But other than that, I feel like he knows more about how to calm me down than other people might because he knows what gets me riled up.
AF: Peyton, how did your family react when you made the decision to play for Kent with Brody?
PW: My parents, actually. They wanted me to come up here the whole time. So when I told them that I was, I was bought in, and that's what I wanted to do. They were pretty stoked.
AF: One last question. If you could pick each other's walk-up songs, what would they be?
PW: I'd say for Brody, it'd be Huntin', Fishin' and Lovin' Every Day by Luke Bryan.
BW: I like the one you used for high school. I think Hicktown by Jason Aldean fits where we came from, so I may switch it back. We'll see.
AF: Peyton and Brody, thank you for sharing your Kent State of Mind.
