GCC grad Neal McDermott regains control of career with move to outfield at Seton Hill

Unable to sleep and full of self-doubt, Neal McDermott sat up in bed and cried.

A couple of years before the fifth-year Seton Hill baseball player made SportsCenter’s No. 1 play with a highlight-reel catch as a reinvented center fielder, he was a pitcher. A pitcher at wit’s end, watching helplessly as his college career sank like a lead balloon.

“I called my mom that night and prayed,” McDermott said. “I didn’t know what to do. I thought, ‘This is it. I am done with baseball.’ I knew deep down I really wasn’t, but I wasn’t having fun anymore.”

Then a junior, McDermott was a lost soul who couldn’t throw a strike. He was skipping pitches through the dirt, hitting batters and issuing walks generously.

The zone had shrunk to the size of a bug’s eye, and the right-hander’s command that had been so prevalent the previous season was fading fast.

“He had allowed maybe one hit and had eight strikeouts through six innings of this game,” Griffins coach Marc Marizzaldi said. “Then, he started to miss his spots. You could see it start to bother him. It was tough to watch.”

The benevolent McDermott started to unravel just before the onslaught of the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, just before the season was shut down.

The Greensburg Central Catholic graduate from Leechburg felt helpless and sought guidance.

“I love to compete, but as the pressure began to grow, it got the best of me,” McDermott said. “It was a crazy thing. I had to ask myself if I was playing the game for the right reason.”

He saw therapists, worked and reworked his mechanics, reached out to other pitchers who lost their mojo and threw endlessly day and night, looking for the form that allowed him to go 3-0 with a 3.03 ERA and three saves as a freshman.

Where had that 92 mph velocity gone?

He even tried pitching with his eyes closed. Really.

The unofficial diagnosis through the ups and many downs of physically and mentally losing his touch: performance anxiety.

“I threw weighted balls, tried different arm slots, everything,” he said. “We tried it all. I thought to myself, ‘Baseball is what defined me and maybe I can be all right without it.’ ”

He talked at length with former Griffins pitcher Peyton Reesman, who played at Pitt and currently pitches for Radford.

Through Instagram, McDermott connected with major league pitcher Tyler Matzek, who won a World Series with the Atlanta Braves.

Matzek became notorious for having the “yips” before regaining his form.

The question beckoned: Did McDermott need baseball more than baseball needed McDermott?

“We tried everything with him,” Marizzaldi, a former pitcher, said. “It was tough to see him go through that. But we really like his extreme competitiveness and his elite athleticism. Making plays in center field or scoring 30 points in a high school game, it’s the same thing. I just told him, ‘Go play.’ He earned our belief.”

At some programs, and sans an extra year that turned out to be the fruit of the dreaded pandemic for college athletes, McDermott might have been an afterthought, disregarded and quickly replaced by a new prospect.

Seton Hill put its collective arms around him and gave him another chance.

“Maz and all the coaches, they’re always open. Coach Tim Cronin really worked with me,” McDermott said. “I needed to be around the guys. They all made sure I was going to be OK.”

McDermott said teammates such as senior Tanner Froehlich, fifth-year Omar Ward and junior Jack Oberdorf — his roommate — have rallied around him.

“We have gone through similar things,” said Ward, who came to Seton Hill as a transfer from Canisius.

The Derry native and Kiski School grad also switched from pitcher to outfielder, but his move was driven more by an injury than control issues.

“You can see what type of athlete Neal is,” Ward said. “We’ve talked about baseball not defining us. Our motto is, ‘Keep showing up.’”

Marizzaldi, who loved McDermott’s athleticism and drive to work through it, asked his reliever a question six games into his senior season in 2021.

“He said, ‘Do you want to play center field?’ ” McDermott said. “It wasn’t something I had thought about until then. I wanted to be able to help the team any way I could. I knew it would give me a new perspective on the game and I could be a leader for the younger guys. I said, ‘Sure.’ ”

That also meant putting a bat back in his hands. A terrific hitter and pitcher at GCC, McDermott began his transformation with the support of his coaches and teammates.

McDermott’s last mound appearance came March 3, 2020, against Embry-Riddle in Daytona Beach, Fla.

He had a 5-4 record and 7.09 ERA with 73 strikeouts and 64 walks in 53.1 innings. He only took the mound twice in 2020.

“I never really gave up pitching,” McDermott said. “I will be a pitcher until the day I die.”

His diving catch against visiting Clarion last week went viral as ESPN made it No. 1 on its Top Plays segment.

“That was pretty cool,” McDermott said. “I never pictured I would be doing anything like that when I arrived here.”

Through 30 games, McDermott was hitting .273 with 14 runs scored, five doubles and 12 RBIs. He had eight stolen bases for the Griffins (23-7-1), who went into a weekend four-game home-and-home series against Slippery Rock ranked No. 17 in the nation in Division II.

McDermott said he is grateful to be playing a graduate season. He plans to work as an inside sales rep for Dell and also helps another GCC alum, Zach Guiser, at GT Performance in Greensburg.

He said he would like to pursue coaching. Could he see himself as a pitching coach?

“I would love that, 100%,” he said. “That would be full circle.”