The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Sholtis a student on and off field
WINSTED » Pitcher Ryan Sholtis finished his senior season at The Gilbert School with 88 strikeouts in 54.2 innings and a 2.18 ERA for a young Yellowjacket team that missed qualifying for the Class S State Tournament with a 6-15 record in the Berkshire League..
It doesn’t take long in an hourlong conversation following his second win of the summer for Winsted’s Post 43 American Legion team to learn there’s more to pitching than a fastball in the mid-to-high 80s — and much more to Ryan Sholtis than delivering it from a 6-foot-9-inch frame.
First, he’s a student — in both the traditional sense and in the art of pitching.
Headed for Division III’s elite Amherst College, he graduated with a 4.6 grade point average on a 4.0 scale, thanks to the number of advanced placement college course he took at Gilbert, then slammed his SATs.
Even so, he’s realistic/self-effacing enough to know he might not have been accepted at the small liberal arts school — 1,849 students, 14 percent acceptance rate — without help from his teachers, coach Don Crossman and, maybe the genetics that made him a 6-9 pitcher.
“Sixty percent of the kids at Amherst were valedictorians of their high school class. I’m not a valedictorian,” he smiles.
What he is, instead, is a very
bright guy who got sensational recommendations from his teachers and an extra effort from Crossman, a lights-out pitcher in his days at Gilbert and Central Connecticut, who then played Tri-State Baseball with Amherst baseball coach Brian Hamm.
Valedictorian or not, Sholtis will fit in just fine on the Amherst campus and baseball diamond.
“I had a shot at lower D-I schools, but they just didn’t seem right,” he said. “Amherst did. Every person I talked with was extremely intelligent, plus there are five colleges in the Amherst (Massachusetts) area. It’s a great environment.”
Crossman, Hamm, who starred at Terryville High School and Middlebury College, and Sholtis himself know what he brings as a pitcher.
“I don’t think most people realize the advantage height has in baseball pitching,” Sholtis says. “My stride takes me closer to the plate at my release point and I’m throwing from a higher angle than most batters are used to. In pitching, angles are everything.”
So is focus, but “selfawareness” might be the better word for Sholtis as pitcher, student and person.
“I always had a size advantage. I was a Little League closer at eight years old. By the time I was 12, I was 6-4. My stride took me a third of the way to the plate and I’d strike out 16, 17 or 18 kids a game. Winsted is a small town and we were playing for fun. That’s why I was always a strikeout pitcher.”
By high school, after trying soccer and basketball, the focus was on baseball
“By sixth grade, I started to realize I loved baseball more — you were outdoors and you didn’t have to run all the time. The baseball field is where I wanted to be.”
Crossman’s biggest effect was “the mental side of the game.
“At this point, it’s hard to change your mechanics, but every single game, he would remind me that I’d try too hard after (his team made) an error. He always told me I don’t need to do more.”
On the other hand, Sholtis loves the physical tweaks he got from Crossman.
“The big thing we worked on is keeping my hips closed. It sounds simple, but it adds power by using my legs more. It probably added a couple of miles an hour to my fastball.”
Pitching lessons continue now that Sholtis has an allstar defense behind him with Post 43. Coach D.J. Reese is an assistant coach at Class M State Champion Lewis Mills. Teammates come from Housatonic (Class S semifinalist) and Northwestern (first-round winner over Class M’s No. 1 seed) as well as Gilbert.
Winsted is 6-4, fourth in a nine-team Zone I that includes teams loaded with allstars from bigger schools. Sholtis has wins over sixthplace Simsbury (4-4-1) and second-place Bristol (5-21) while holding first-place Avon (8-1) to a 2-0 win.
“I’ve learned that I don’t have to be a strikeout pitcher all the time now,” he says. “A first-pitch groundball out is much more valuable.”
The lesson played out in Tuesday’s come-from-behind win over Bristol, loaded as usual with big-time hitters who love fastballs.
Sholtis’ repertoire includes four-seam and twoseam fastballs, a curve and a changeup, but his secondary pitches deserted him. Bristol hitters slammed every fastball mistake, good for six hits and a 4-1 lead in the first three-and-a-half innings.
“In the Berkshire League, if I just threw strikes, they probably weren’t going to do too much, but my changeup was the pitch I worked on most with Mr. Crossman because that was his go-to pitch in college. Even major league pitchers are learning that a good changeup is the hardest pitch to hit in baseball.
“(Tuesday), I switched to the change-up and got more rollovers after the fourth inning.”
Sholtis ended with just four strikeouts, but only four more hits and no Bristol runs in the last three innings while Winsted’s offense caught up.
Pitching lessons are bound to continue at Amherst, but what about the person from small-town Winsted, transplanted from Gilbert?
Sholtis sees mostly similarities in the environments.
“I’ve always loved Gilbert,” he says. “I’ve been there six years; my brother was there four years. Everybody knows each other. Our principal, Alan Strauss, was Connecticut Principal of the Year last year and the teachers are great. We have lots of diversity. The international kids (a program in partnership with China) have done a lot. They’re really impressive because they come from the science and math push in China.
“Whether you have money or not never affected our social lives.”
Sholtis’ Amherst application essay — another big factor in his admission — was on the importance of diversity in a learning environment.
Amherst boasts 45 percent students of color, nine percent international and 22 percent eligible for Pell Grants. Why wouldn’t Sholtis feel at home?
It’s also a place to thrive as pitcher, student and person.
“I’ve always wanted to play professionally and the scouts love my size,” he says. “Their pitching coach (Jordan Tabakman) pitched at UConn (2015 four-year graduate in the top 11 all-time for wins, innings and starts; a Cape Cod League pitching coach last summer).
“I’ll have the coaching,” says Sholtis. “I think if I can get to the mid-90s by my junior year, I’ll have a great chance. They’ve had three kids drafted (including Wamogo’s Mike Odenwaelder).
“If I don’t make it, I’ll still have a great career opportunity, thanks to Amherst.
“I plan right now to go to law school. As an undergraduate, I’m leaning toward sociology as a major. I’m interested in the impact of money on society, so maybe I’ll try a double major in economics. And I really enjoy writing, so I’ll probably take some English courses.”
A legal career offers other possibilities.
“It seems like our criminal justice system needs reform. We incarcerate the most people per capita in the world and a lot of it is minor drug offenses. I would also consider working with child abuse situations. I’d like to be an attorney for children. Those situations really anger me.”
Any questions?