Freeport grad Matt Swartz carves out niche as catcher, shortstop at IUP

Catcher and shortstop aren’t typically positions where the same player is listed at the top of the depth chart, but Matt Swartz is not a typical player.

When Swartz, a Freeport graduate, isn’t wearing the “tools of ignorance” and crouching behind home plate for IUP, he finds himself standing between second and third base.

It’s a unique combination, and it just scratches the surface on how Swartz, a redshirt senior, evolved as a player over the last few years.

When Swartz arrived at IUP his sophomore year after transferring from Mercyhurst, he was a catcher who had a lot of promise in his bat. That bat still plays today, as entering Friday, Swartz led the Crimson Hawks with a .394 batting average and eight doubles and was tied with Nick Hess for the team lead in homers with five.

But when he first arrived on campus he was behind a couple experienced catchers and had to carve out a role to get on the field. So, he started taking infield practice at second base, then at third base and moved into a starter’s role at second base while the incumbent starter was recovering from injury.

Swartz worked on his defense to become a utility player and now has the trust of the coaching staff to go out and anchor the infield at a position he hadn’t played before this season.

“Whatever Coach (Rebyanski) feels like is going to help the team win, I’m all for it,” Swartz said. “I’m pretty versatile at this point in my career. I can play short, second, third, first and I can catch. I know all the positions, and I feel like I can play them all solidly. I’m embracing (shortstop) more and more every time I trot out there. I’m a bigger guy. I’m 6-2, 230, so I’m not your prototypical shortstop, but I’m trying my best to get the job done and help our team win.”

Swartz has mainly played shortstop in PSAC play, but has had some time at catcher in the four games of back-to-back doubleheaders that conference teams play on weekends. It’s been an adjustment, but playing every other position around the diamond has helped the transition.

“He’s an athletic kid for his size,” IUP coach Anthony Rebyanski said. “We had a bit of lack of depth at short, and he’s filled the role well. He might not make the difficult play that a normal shortstop or third baseman might, but he for sure makes all the routine ones.

“He’s bettered his game defensively and wants to keep doing that every day. He always wants groundballs or popups in the infield to keep getting better at the things he may feel he’s not so great at. He’s always trying to find a way to better himself not only for himself, but to help the team win.”

The hitting side has come pretty natural for Swartz.

Swartz has a five-game hitting streak entering a home-and-home series with Mercyhurst this weekend. He credited coaching from his Legion days with Dave and Dennis Montgomery at Kiski Valley, Mercyhust coach Joe Spano and his staff and Rebyanski, along with IUP assistant Jared Grove, with helping him better himself as a hitter.

He isn’t afraid to talk to teammates about hitting and partly because of his catching background, loves to delve into pitch sequencing and other scenarios that help him with his approach in the batter’s box.

“Anybody that has ever talked to me about hitting knows that I’m a very analytical type of hitter,” Swartz said. “I’m always thinking about the probabilities of what pitch is going to come next, setup pitches and what the opposing pitcher is thinking about when I’m getting into the box. I think about how opposing coaches are going to attack me. That just comes with being a catcher and dealing with pitchers. I’ve been able to catch some really great pitchers in college and in summer ball.

“Hitting in the 3 or 4 hole you’re going to see a lot of curveballs and sliders. One of the areas that I’ve really improved on this year is being able to recognize and hit hanging sliders early in counts. Last year, I was taking them for strikes.”

The Crimson Hawks started 1-7 in PSAC West play, but Swartz said they had a similar start his sophomore year and turned it around, and he sees similar capabilities within the current group.

“In our first two conference series we lost a lot of one- or two-run ballgames because we weren’t firing on all cylinders,” Swartz said. “I think it’ll take just one game where we click for us to turn this whole thing around. Our sophomore year everyone kind of counted us out, and we ended up surprising some people. We’re really close to putting this all together.”