By Taylor Nigrelli @Nigrelli93
Brian Weightman has never had any doubts about his athleticism. The 6’4 outfielder from Jeannette, Pa., and current junior at St. Bonaventure, was a three-sport athlete at Jeanette High School where he played football with current Oakland Raiders quarterback, Terrelle Pryor.
However, while for playing for the Geneva Red Wings in the New York Collegiate Baseball League this summer, Weightman will be focused more on fine tuning his baseball-specific skills.
“Brian’s a tremendous athlete,” St. Bonaventure head baseball coach Larry Sudbrook said. “He played football, baseball and basketball in high school.”
But because Weightman was a three-sport star, he didn’t have the time to focus solely on baseball, unlike most of his teammates.
“As good of an experience as (playing three sports) is, it’s actually still hindering him in baseball,” Sudbrook said. “While other guys were playing tons of summer games and so on, he was doing football workouts.”
That’s why this summer Weightman plans to focus on some of the fine points of his game. He hopes to improve his ability to make contact and recognize pitches among other aspects of the game.
“I probably need to work on recognition of pitches and making more contact,” Weightman said. “I’ll have to try to work on that. I just need to get at bats. I just have go out and work on it.”
Weightman already has 6.6 speed in the 60 and has a tremendous arm throwing from the outfield (Sudbrook believes he can throw in the mid to upper 80’s). He believes he can hit for both power and contact but he’s struggled on thus far on the collegiate level. In his three seasons, Weightman has played in 46 games and started 20. But he’s batting only .091 with four rbi and no extra-base hits.
Sudbrook hopes this summer helps Weightman become more of a baseball player than a pure athlete.
“Brian is one of the most athletic, if not the most athletic guy on the team,” Sudbrook said. “But he’s still not a great baseball player because he’s so far behind guys when it comes to things like swings and reps.”
“In Brian’s case, he needs experience. He just needs to get a lot of at bats, he needs to see a lot of fly balls because he’s behind a lot of people. He also needs to work a lot on off-speed pitches.”
Improvement this summer could be the key to Weightman receiving more playing time his senior year. He seems to understand this as his goals for the summer are very similar to what his coach wants from him.
“I’m just trying to get better,” Weightman said. “I’m gonna get a ton of at bats and keep improving.”
The Geneva Red Wings open their season June 6th on the road against 2012 league champion the Syracuse Jr. Chiefs. A 1 p.m. first pitch is scheduled at Hopkins Road Park.
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