Golf, Basketball, Baseball
Favorite athlete: Bryce Harper
Favorite team: Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning our state playoff game in baseball my junior year
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: When I hit my first home run I tripped and fell while running out of the batters back.
Music on your playlist: Country
Future plans: Chestnut Hill College to study business and play baseball
Words to live by: “Leave it all out on the field.”
One goal before turning 30: Own a business
One thing people don’t know about me: I received 12 varsity letters in high school.
By Craig Ostroff
It was a refreshingly different summer for Kenny Lutz.
After four years as a three-sport varsity athlete, the recent Hatboro-Horsham graduate was no longer packing
three sports’ worth of offseason prep over the summer months. Lutz – who just began his freshman year at Chestnut Hill College – was able to spend the summer focused on baseball, which he will play for the Griffins in the spring.
“It’s been nice,” said Lutz, who played golf, basketball and baseball for the Hatters. “Every other summer, we’re going to a basketball tournament or open gyms at night, then golf starts in early August. This summer I can focus on baseball and give it 100 percent of my focus.”
Lutz is rooming with his Hatter teammate and sometimes-battery-mate Shane Mills at Chestnut Hill, where Lutz expects to play shortstop or third base and will pursue a degree in business administration and management.
“I’m really looking forward to everything starting,” Lutz said. “Playing baseball there is going to be fun. I’ve been talking to them since I was a sophomore. I really like the coaching staff there, and I think they were the best fit for me athletically and academically. And Shane and I have known each other since we were little kids. It’s going to be fun to be rooming together and having him there.”
While Lutz and the Griffins may be eyeing a specific position, there’s no guarantee he’ll remain there. After all, Lutz’s versatility has been one of the keys to his success in athletics as a whole, but particularly on – and all around – the baseball diamond.
Lutz has played most positions for the Hatters – and it’s practically become legend that he once played all nine positions in a single weekend for his travel team a few years ago. He started his senior season as a catcher, but moved to shortstop when starter Cole Incudine went down with a sprained ankle.
“When Cole went down, Coach (Andy Fisher) came to me, ‘Hey, Kenny, can you play shortstop?’ ‘Yeah, why not? I’ll figure it out,’” Lutz said.
Lutz’s ability to adapt to whatever position he’s asked to play isn’t only a testament to his skills and baseball IQ. It also speaks to the kind of leader and teammate he is.
“As a coach, Kenny is all you can ask for,” said Hatters’ first-year head coach Fisher. “I asked him to do a lot of things this year, both on and off the field. Not once does he push back. He’s a ball player, through and through. He’ll play anywhere, do whatever you want him to do, and not once will he complain, make excuses, or point fingers. He’s a great leader. You ask him to do something, he picks up his gear and goes out to the position and gets the job done. That’s Kenny.”
While Lutz may make it look easy, his journey on the field hasn’t always been so smooth. Lutz admits that his struggles at the plate during his sophomore and junior seasons led him to question if baseball was the sport he wanted to play in college.
“Sophomore year was tough all around,” he said. “We struggled as a team as well. Junior year we made a state tournament run, made it to the quarterfinals. But personally, I was still struggling at the plate. I was happy for the team and proud to be part of that run, but I think those two years I was sometimes asking myself if I was making the right choice to play baseball at the next level.”
What turned things around for Lutz was not a change in his swing or other mechanics. It was simply the love of the game and the faith that he could battle through the slump.
“I’ve been playing baseball since I was 4 or 5,” Lutz said. “The love I have for the game pushed me to keep going and know I was making the right choice in wanting to play in college. And I think the big difference this year was just hanging in there, knowing I had what it takes, and summer ball after my junior year was a big confidence boost for me.”
That’s a bit of an understatement. Lutz ended his senior baseball season with First-Team All-Liberty Division honors and was named Liberty Division Player of the Year for his outstanding defensive efforts coupled with a torrid .409 batting average.
“Being named Player of the Year meant a lot,” said the two-year captain. “I knew that PW had a kid who played really well this year, too. I never really thought about that. But one of my goals was to get First Team All-League, though it was at catcher. To move over to shortstop and get First Team All-League was a big accomplishment, Player of Year was just awesome.”
“Kenny has always been really good defensively,” Fisher said. “This year he put the work in to improve at the plate as well. He showed up for everything. He was the first to show up to practice, stayed late. And he had a hell of a year.”
In the winter, on the hardwood, it’s much of the same for Lutz, who played wherever he was needed.
“I remember one game vs PW, I guarded their center, who is 6-10,” Lutz said. “Other times, if our
point guard is taking a break, I’d take the ball up and run things. No matter the sport, you just have to have that attitude of wanting to win. Whatever the team needs you to do, just do whatever it takes.”
“Kenny is one of those kids who you really enjoy having around your program,” said former Hatters’ basketball coach Bill Coleman, who has accepted the same position at Lansdale Catholic. “He’s a talented athlete, but what stands out most is the way he competes and represents his school.”
And while the team struggled at times and finished 10-12 overall, Lutz said he enjoyed his final season on the court, and he’s excited to see where the team goes in the future.
“Basketball this season was bittersweet for me,” Lutz said. “My dad coached me for 6 years in basketball, and I started at a young age. We didn’t finish how we wanted to, we missed the playoffs by one game.
“Hatboro-Horsham basketball hasn’t been that great for the last decade, and as a team and for the seniors, we wanted to change that script and make playoffs for the first time in 10 years. We didn’t do it, but I do think the team is in a good position moving forward. There’s a solid young group in there that can change that script.”
For as much as high school athletes want their senior season to be the best of their career, it doesn’t always work out that way. But that’s a lesson Lutz had learned in the fall. The number one golfer for the Hatters, Lutz didn’t end the season the way he’d hoped. Nonetheless, after earning First Team All-League honors as a junior, he was named Second Team All-League as a senior.
“I still had some things I wanted to accomplish this golf season, but it didn’t end the way I wanted to,” he said. “I didn’t make it as far as I’d hoped.
“Golf is pretty tough – it’s very individual but you’re also fighting for the team and playing for the team. It’s honestly the most challenging out of the three sports I played. There are so many different things it can throw at you, and it’s a game where one hole can mess up the rest of the round. It’s definitely a mental grind.”
In more ways than one, Lutz has shown that persistence and dedication – and versatility, of course – are keys to overcoming adversity. They’re traits he tried to display at all times, and he hopes his
teammates who will return to the athletic fields for the 2026-27 school year will remember and emulate those characteristics.
“I just did what I was asked to do in order to help my teams win,” he said. “Part of being a senior is building that winners’ mindset in the younger guys. I think we had it this year. It might not have shown in our records, but we did what we needed to do and hopefully passed that on to the younger kids.”
His efforts did not go unnoticed by his coaches.
“Being a three-sport contributor says a lot about his work ethic, commitment, and willingness to be part of a team,” Coleman said. “Kenny is the type of student-athlete that coaches appreciate, and I wasn’t surprised to see him having success in multiple sports. He’s a great example of what being a well-rounded high school athlete should look like.”
Lutz’s contribution to the baseball team – and to his coach – go far deeper than just his efforts between the foul lines.
“I was the assistant coach when Kenny was a freshman and sophomore,” Fisher said. “I’ve known Kenny for a while. He was our everything guy, he played everywhere for us, played whole left side of infield, caught, pitched a little … You don’t replace a Kenny Lutz. You can’t. He was so good at so many things.
“But it’s going to be tougher to replace him as a locker room guy, a guy who showed up to every workout, always set the example. He’s a great kid, comes from a great family. I’m so happy he was there my first year. He made things a lot easier for me.
“You can coach a long time and not have a kid like Kenny Lutz. I was fortunate to have him my first year.”