Baseball's been good to them
Community baseball has already given plenty to Lake Pry, Isaiah Lucas and Brandon Kowalski.
Now it's giving each of them a little bit more.
Those three players received $1,000 scholarships from the Butler County Area Baseball League prior to the circuit's All-Star Game Monday night at Kelly Automotive Park.
The trio won the scholarships through the league's essay contest. Players in their final BCABL season were permitted to write an essay about what community baseball means to them. There were 14 entrants.
“I thought I might have a 50-50 shot at winning,” said Lucas of East Butler. “It wasn't that hard. I just wrote what I felt.”
A Butler graduate, Lucas will extend his baseball career at Allegheny College next season.
Kowalski, a Knoch graduate who plays for Saxonburg, will be entering his sophomore year at Penn State Behrend as an accounting major. He is considering trying out for the baseball team there.
“Writing about community baseball was a reflection of my life,” Kowalski said. “I've learned so much through this game.”
Pry, a Moniteau graduate and a member of the West Sunbury team, is headed to Grove City College and will be a pitcher on the Wolverines' baseball team.
“This league is so much fun,” Pry said. “It enables you to play baseball all summer with your high school buddies.
“The games are fun, yet competitive at the same time.”
Pry wrote in his essay how “I needed to give back to baseball. I began to umpire games for the younger kids in the program and help maintain the fields.
“I knew that I needed to give back to the game that gave so much to me.”
Lucas said he played plenty of travel ball through the years, “but staying home and playing baseball with guys you grew up with just means more to me.”
He wrote in his essay the importance of keeping perspective about baseball, that it is, after all, a game: “Too many times, I allowed myself to get too caught up in how many strikes I watched go by, what my stance was like at the plate ... Yes, those things are important, but my goodness, no one is perfect.
“I have allowed myself to not get too worked up over the strikeouts and errors and just brush it off and have fun ... win or lose. When you are having fun, you are happy. Isn't that what life is all about?”
Kowalski wrote about how baseball taught him work ethic that he's carried into other avenues of life.
“In school, I work my butt off to make sure I had great grades and I did,” he wrote. “I graduated high school with a 3.95 grade point average and I finished my freshman year of college with a 3.72 grade point average.
“I have also taken my work ethic to the weight room. Lifting weights has skyrocketed my performance, shaving .4 seconds off my 60-yard dash and taking my bat speed from 79 miles per hour to 95 miles per hour.”
BCABL president Larry Stelitano said the league may seek out local businesses to contribute to the scholarship program next season to increase their value.
“This has been a good program for us and we want to keep it going for a long time,” Stelitano said.
