It's baseball season, or at least what comes close during this rain-filled time of the year, and Northern Bedford's Joel Suter threw a curveball recently.
It wasn't on the field. It came in the form of his choice to wrestle at Millersville University.
His high school coach, Jan Clark, thought he was going to play baseball. Suter had visited Shippensburg University on a football recruiting visit. His other wrestling trip was to UPJ, which is where many area wrestlers wind up.
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Instead, Suter chose Millersville, which is located near Lancaster and is Division I in wrestling.
"I thought about playing baseball, but moreso in football," he said. "Wrestling just worked out the best for me. It's Division I and I have a pretty good chance to start right away."
"I'm happy for him," Clark said. "I'm glad he's going to wrestle. All he ever talked about it as far as college was concerned was baseball. That's why I'm kind of shocked."
Suter rolled to a 19-0 record as a senior with 16 first-period pins at 215 before he came down with mononucleosis, and he missed most of February.
Cleared to wrestle the day before the District 5 Tournament started, Suter won districts, took second at regionals and pulled off a shocker in his second state tournament by pinning Lackawanna Trail's returning state champion Eric Laytos in 1:06 in the quarterfinals. Suter placed sixth and finished 26-4 with 21 pins, and he was 83-17 in his career.
"I think I did pretty good considering what I went through," Suter said. "It taught me some lessons. Just have fun and appreciate what you're doing when you can. You have to be patient with everything."
Suter was an underweight 215-pounder at Northern Bedford, but he'll actually have to lose weight in college to get to 197 pounds.
"Just being able to cut some weight instead of giving up some I'm sure will help me," Suter said.
The Marauders had two wrestle at 197 this past season in junior Brent Barr and freshman Daniel Cox, and they went a combined 13-27. So, Suter might have a good shot at breaking into the lineup as a freshman.
"I think at Millersville he'll be able to step on the team and start," Clark said. "He could do OK. Whether he's an All-American, it's up to him. I think he can be successful there. The sky is the limit for him. Division I is a commitment, but he has a lot of potential."
Suter is looking forward to wrestling for the Marauders.
"I'm pretty excited," he said. "I'm glad I made a decision. For awhile, it was up in the air with what I was doing. The last couple of weeks, I didn't know what I was going to do, but it worked itself out."
