On Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2021, Pennridge senior Ryan DeHaven was recognized for committing to continue his baseball career at West Chester University.
Ryan DeHaven – West Chester University (Baseball)
Major: Business
Final list of colleges: West Chester, Penn State
Reasons for choosing West Chester: “After touring the campus, I loved it, and it felt like the right decision. I liked the coaches, and it’s a good D-2 program.”
What was the progression that led you to competing in baseball at the collegiate level? “I started thinking about playing college baseball when I was a kid.
“COVID definitely impacted the recruiting because we didn’t have a season sophomore year, but we did end up playing in a two-week tournament with the team later in the summer and that definitely helped out. I also played for club teams, and they still went on even during COVID.”
Coach Craig Whitten says: “I had the pleasure of watching Ryan play as a freshman, and you could tell there was something about him – he’s tall, he’s a lefty, and he’s got unexplained velocity. The ball just zips off his hand. His off-speed pitches are great. We had big plans for him in 2020, the COVID year, and we really were leaning on him to be our ace last season. He pretty much exceeded all of our expectations pitching-wise. Unfortunately, every time he pitched, we decided to only get one run or two hits or not hit the ball at all – the Cole Hamels curse that he had when he pitched. He took no-hitters into the sixth inning against CB East, who qualified for district playoffs, and Bensalem, who – at the time – was the number one seed in the district. He’s efficient with his pitches and had a 62 percent first-pitch strike rate. He had nine 1-2-3 innings, so roughly 25 percent of the innings he threw were 1-2-3 innings. I’m excited to see him at West Chester. I think he’s going to do really, really well. He’s a beast in the weight room, he’s a good leader for the underclassmen, and I think the sky’s the limit for him.”
About Ryan:
Favorite food: Yogurt
Favorite TV show: Arrow
Favorite artist: Pop Smoke
All SuburbanOneSports.com articles (or portion of articles) can be turned into keepsakes. For information, please click on the following link:https://www.suburbanonesports.com/article/content/turn-online-features-keepsake-posters-0086874
- Log in to post comments
