Athletes of the Week Show Their Versatility

Two high school seniors who stepped outside their comfort zones for the final months of their varsity careers are this week’s iBerkshires.com/Southwestern Vermont Health Care Athletes of the Week.

 

Cole Wetherell is hitting .140 for a Mount Greylock baseball team that has a record of 6-12.

 

But his contribution goes way beyond the score book and goes back to before the season began.

 

“After last year, we thought we had two quality guys coming back to compete for the starting catcher’s position,” Mount Greylock coach Rick Paris said. “Then, one day, I received devastating news that one had suffered a serious knee injury.

 

“So At that time I reached out to the captains, Cole and Jamo [Jameson Bayliss] to have them get in contact with the other young man. Cole got back to me and said that the other catcher planned to switch to lacrosse. As he told me this, I was like, ‘What are we going to do?’ Because we had no one with any catching experience.

 

“Without any hesitation Cole said, ‘Coach I’ll do it. I will give it a shot. I’ll catch.’ “

 

Paris, whose own son is a Division I college athlete behind the plate, acknowledges that catching is the hardest position on the baseball diamond and recognizes the sacrifice Wetherell made in giving up his positions as an outfielder and pitcher for the Mounties.

 

But sacrifice comes naturally for Wetherell.

 

“Cole last year also joined the National Guard, and, during the summer when most kids were out enjoying the sun playing sports, going on vacations or just hanging around with family and friends, he was going through basic training. He is a career-driven young man. He has that mindset to serve and protect.

 

“I believe his lifelong dream was to attend West Point and he will be doing just that after he graduates.”

 

Mount Greylock finishes the regular season this week with games at Northampton on Tuesday and home against Holyoke on Thursday.

 

While Wetherell was changing roles on his team this spring, Emily Raschdorf was taking on a different kind of challenge – changing teams from softball to girls lacrosse at McCann Tech.

 

Though the former catcher says her new position as a lacrosse goalie is similar to her old job.

 

“Yes, definitely,” she said. “I mean, you’re both getting balls thrown at you.”

 

Raschdorf has gotten a lot of experience quickly facing shots on a team that allowed double-digit goals against in its first 12 games this spring.

 

But she also had a big hand in the Hornets’ picking up the first two wins in the three-year history of the program on Thursday and Friday.

 

On Senior Day, Raschdorf, one of a few seniors on the McCann Tech team, stopped eight shots in an 8-6 win over Monson that ended a 37-game winless drought for girls lacrosse at the school.

 

Twenty-four hours later, she was even bigger, stopping 16 shots to backstop the Hornets to an 8-4 win over Monson.

 

McCann Tech has a couple of chances to increase that win total this week as they host Lee on Monday before traveling to Amherst-Pelham for the regular season finale on Tuesday.

 

Despite the obvious similarities between softball catcher and lacrosse goalie, Raschdorf said there was some adjustment to switching over.

 

“In softball, my glove hand is on my left, and the lacrosse net is on my right, so it’s a little harder to get used to,” she said. “But it’s around the same [skill].”

 

The iBerkshires.com Athlete of the Week is sponsored by Southwestern Vermont Health Care.