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Gannon found itself diamond in Liberty’s Wiesen
Liberty High star
walked on and just kept hitting
By charles grove
Girard native Jared Wiesen’s college baseball career recently came to a close at Gannon University. And it was a true “something coming from nothing” type of story.
After a decorative high school career at Liberty where he was named team captain three times, all-conference three times and named the conference player of the year as a senior, Wiesen wasn’t sure if his baseball career was going to progress any further.
Wiesen ended up choosing Gannon University for its engineering program and tried to walk on to the baseball team, and it’s safe to say it was a successful move.
“I always wanted to play college baseball so I went to a few of the meetings and then ended up getting a scholarship after freshman year since I had a good year,” Wiesen said.
A good year would be putting it mildly. As a true freshman walk-on, Wiesen led the Knights in hits (44) and multiple-hit games (12) and was second on the team in batting average (.326).
Wiesen started his second college game and once the shock value of playing in college wore off, everything felt like it did before.
“It was a little intimidating but I’ve been playing my whole life and when I got to start it wasn’t anything different than playing hard and playing the right way,” Wiesen said.
After Gannon put him on scholarship, Wiesen continued to blossom. He led the team in multiple categories each of the next three years but most impressive is the fact Wiesen started every game from his sophomore year to the end of career this spring.
While Weisen says he’s always been healthy during the season, he credits his offseason regimen for the reason he not only produced so much for his team, but was always a staple of the lineup card.
“I’ve always played summer ball,” Wiesen said. “All four years at Gannon I’d get done with the college season and I’d go home and play summer ball for 40-50 games a summer. Constantly getting reps is what you need to be physically and mentally prepared.
“Northeast Ohio is hard to play year-round with the weather, but even if you’re just going to the cage or playing catch outside in 30-degree weather, that’s what you need to do to stay ready at all times.”
That hard work really paid off his senior season. Wiesen, who had a career .314 batting average through his first three years, hit .430 his senior season. He also racked up 71 hits (49 junior season), 60 runs (28) and improved his slugging percentage to .570 (.403) and his on-base percentage to .520 (.362).
“I’d like to say I did something right,” Wiesen said. “It could be a lot of luck or it’s just a product of working hard.”
Wiesen is currently combing the job market with his mechanical engineering degree. He had a one-day tryout with the Los Angeles Angels recently but if he doesn’t hear anything back he’s prepared to keep baseball in his life in other ways.
“My playing days might be over, but I can always play in a softball league or do something like coaching to stay in the game,” Wiesen said. “It’s a game I’ve always played since I was young, so staying involved will keep me going. It’s definitely not going out of my life, that’s for sure.”