CATCHERS

As a small school baseball coach, the first thing I did was determine if we had a catcher. Perhaps the big school coaches also have this thought, but it seems they would have more players from which to choose.

At Lutheran, we were very fortunate to have players who were catchers. It was always comforting to know that our starting catcher was going to return to the line up the next season! Catchers are involved in every play. Enough can not be said about the additional confidence a pitcher can have knowing he is pitching to a good catcher. Catchers have many responsibilities:

• communicating with the coach about pitches

• giving signals to pitchers

• providing a great target for pitchers

• blocking pitches that bounce in from of the plate

• catching pitches that are off target

• throwing would -be base stealers out

• making tags at plays at the plate

• catching foul balls that can be tricky

• giving direction to infielders about certain plays and coverages

Here are our catchers:

KEITH WIXSON

2005

MICHAEL LONGWORTH

2006 - 2008

ZACH BEATON

2007 - 2008

TAYLOR GOFF

2009 - 2011

AJ GRATZ

2012 - 2013

AUSTIN KLASE

2014 - 2015

NOAH WOOD

2016 - 2019