Scheetz commits to Hokies

Kit Scheetz wasn’t even supposed to be the top lefthanded pitcher on his own team. He wound up having one of the best seasons of any southpaw in the state.

The rising senior, who didn’t know if he’d be able to make James River’s 2011 varsity baseball team after sitting out his sophomore season with a knee injury, compiled a 9-1 record with a 1.67 earned-run average as a junior and led the Rapids to the Group AAA state semifinals.

Along the way, college coaches began to take notice. Radford was the first to offer him a scholarship, then William & Mary followed suit.

Finally, after Scheetz pitched well for the Midlothian-based Virginia Cardinals in a showcase tournament at Virginia Tech and Radford in mid-June, Hokies coach Pete
Hughes decided he had seen enough to offer him the chance to play in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

“It happened a lot quicker than I expected,” Scheetz said. “[Hughes] told me if I wanted to wait for a school like U.Va. to offer, by all means do it. But they weren’t going to wait around for me.

“I realized that right now, the best choice for me was Virginia Tech.”

The fact that he got a scholarship offer from an ACC school prior to the start of his senior season was an “unbelievable” reversal of fortune for Scheetz.
Instead of enjoying a breakout sophomore campaign, Scheetz underwent surgery to repair a torn ACL in his left knee and needed several months to rehabilitate the injury. Limping around with his knee in a brace, Scheetz’s mood darkened and he eventually became he’d blown a major opportunity.

“I don’t think I would’ve made it this far without my parents because I was so down on myself when I got hurt,” he added. “My dad kept telling me I was going to come back stronger than ever.”

That’s exactly what happened. A door opened for Scheetz at James River when fireballing lefty Nathan Kirby, a classmate and U.Va. commit, suffered an ankle injury and missed several games early in the season.

Scheetz and sophomore Will Roberts teamed up to keep the Rapids afloat during Kirby’s absence, then the three-headed pitching monster led James River to the Central Region championship.

While Kirby and Roberts relied on overpowering stuff to retire opposing hitters, Scheetz confounded opponents with finesse: pinpoint control and a sharp breaking curveball that kept batters from getting too comfortable with his mid-80s fastball.

“A lot of guys get too caught up in velocity and things that don’t necessarily lead to winning games,” Virginia Cardinals coach Rich Graham said. “Kit works on executing a sequence of pitches that help him get hitters out.”

Graham described Scheetz’s recruitment as “a tribute to coaches who were willing to think outside the box a little bit.”

Scheetz acknowledged he was nervous about playing with the Cardinals this summer because he lacks the prototypical size and velocity many college coaches desire.
What he discovered is that there are Division I programs who place more value on the ability to make quality pitches than hitting some “magic” number on a radar gun.

“The thing about the recruiting process is you never know. It’s a mystery sometimes,” Graham said. “He’s not 6-2 and he doesn’t throw 90, but what he’s done the last four weeks is face the best competition on the east coast and dominated.”

Under NCAA rules, Scheetz can’t sign a binding letter-of-intent until November. But by making his commitment to Virginia Tech, he removed a big weight from his shoulders for the remainder of the summer.

“It’s such a relief to know I don’t have to feel any pressure when we’re playing in these tournaments,” Scheetz said. “I can just go out there and pitch and not have to worry about all that other stuff.”