With the suspension from school due to COVID-19, baseball season has been cut short, affecting recruitment for some athletes looking to continue the sport in college. 

“Because i’m a senior, this is the last season they could have watched me,” senior baseball player Kyle McCord said. “It’s one thing to see video and stuff but usually they want to come watch in person and so that not being available makes it a lot harder to get recruited and get noticed by coaches.”

For junior Owen archer, losing the opportunity for coaches to see you play in person can slow down connection and interest from a college recruiter. 

“So I’m trying to go to the US naval academy right now and I’m still in contact with the coaches and they’re still emailing us,” Archer said. “But as of how fast it’s going to happen it’s probably going to slow down. Because they can’t come in person and watch me play which they want to do one last time before finalizing it so it will probably just slow it down a little bit but not too bad.”

Both athletes have utilized social distancing time to get better at their skills individually. 

“I’m still working out, I’m still going to centerfield baseball academy, still throwing, hitting and all that stuff. I’m trying to get prepared so that when we do come back it’ll be easier.”

Even though the athletes have lost field time, McCord is still looking to build strength and improve as an athlete, to prepare for future opportunities in collegiate baseball.

“I bought some weights and stuff, I’ve been doing conditioning,” McCord said. “Our coaches set some stuff out that we can work on and then I built my own bullpen to practice pitching in my backyard.”