By John Raffel
Correspondent
MATTAWAN – Mattawan baseball has several talented players this season including Connor Walsh.
He’s a senior for Mattawan and plays shortstop. He was moved up at the end of his freshman season. It’s the third year he’ll be starting on varsity.
Walsh as a sophomore played second base and walked off the team to a regional title with a bunt to go to the school’s first ever quarterfinal/
“We’ve won two district and two regional championships,” he said. “We made a Final Four appearance last year.”
Walsh is a team captain this year for baseball and was a first-team all-conference pick his sophomore and junior year. He was all district as a sophomore and junior and at the same time was awarded as his team’s top offensive player.
Walsh was also all-conference in basketball. He’s going to play baseball at Eastern Michigan University.
“Their coaching staff is completely new there,” Walsh said. “They have a great vision for the program. They reached out to me. The coaches are awesome people.”
Walsh batted .367 last year and only struck out seven times in 143 plate appearances. His OPS was .867.
This season, Walsh hopes to hit as high as .500.Discipline is a huge thing along with reps,” Walsh said. “I’m always making adjustments. There’s no such thing as a perfect swing. Being adjustable is a big deal.”
The team is young this year, Walsh said.
“Our pitching staff is phenomenal,” he said. “We have other guys who are also playing Division I baseball. We have to get everyone healthy and get hot at the right time.”
Walsh has played baseball since he was 4 and has almost always been a shortstop.
