Four student-athletes from Aquinas Academy in Hampton celebrated their official signing day May 21 by inking their intentions to continue sports at the collegiate level.
Seniors Caitlyn Abbett of Aspinwall, Meghan McGee of Renfrew, Patrick Richthammer of Hampton and Jonah Burchill of Ambridge gathered in the school’s gymnasium with friends and family to publicly announce their commitments.
Aquinas Academy athletic director Tom Kayda spoke about the importance of students continuing sports in college.
“With our curriculum standards being so high, sometimes there can be a misconception that we don’t focus on athletics enough — but every time a student continues playing sports in college, it’s great for our school,” Kayda said.
Aquinas Academy regularly looks for new sports to offer at the school. One of the most recent additions is the high school baseball team. In only its second full year as an official WPIAL baseball team, the Crusaders made it to the second round of the WPIAL playoffs only to suffer a tough loss, 13-3, to Serra Catholic on May 18.
Under the leadership of former Major League pitcher and head baseball coach David Phelps, the young Aquinas baseball program already will be sending one of its players off to compete in college.
Burchill intends to play baseball and basketball at Christendom College in Virginia.
“He’s just the ideal person that you want to coach. He does exactly what you ask of him. He was unanimously voted a team captain two years in a row. Really, I could talk about his stats all day, but we aren’t just trying to build athletes here. We are trying to build the whole person, and Jonah is a great example of that. He’s someone the other kids can look up to,” Phelps said.
But what might be most impressive about Burchill is that he didn’t start playing organized baseball until 10th grade.
“He’s such a gifted athlete. I told Jonah that whatever he chooses to do he’ll be great at. It’s incredibly difficult to go from never playing organized baseball to pitching in the WPIAL,” Phelps said.
Burchill said he cherished his time at Aquinas. While they lost in the playoffs, he said it generated huge interest in the program that will carry it forward.
Abbett will be playing soccer at Franciscan University of Steubenville. Her interest in playing college soccer even caught her parents off guard.
“She mentioned later in high school that she had this interest in playing soccer at the next level, and I was a bit surprised because she always played and enjoyed it — but had we known she was this serious about it, we probably would have done more camps and training,” said her father, Taylor Abbett.
Caitlyn Abbett primarily played defense at Aquinas, but an injury gave her a shot at a new position and her love of the sport only grew.
“She got to play goalkeeper and told me that she really liked it — then she talked about wanting to do it in college,” said her dad, noting she settled on Franciscan University because her faith is important to her and she loved the campus.
McGee also will be attending Franciscan University of Steubenville, where she will play women’s tennis.
She began playing tennis when she was 3 and has loved it ever since. She was a founding member of the girls tennis team at Aquinas, where she served as a team captain and was a standout player for the Lady Crusaders. Like Abbett, she said she let her faith guide her in selecting a college.
Richthammer will be playing soccer at Christendom College. Along with Burchill, Richthammer also was part of the young baseball program at Aquinas. He credits his father for his love of soccer.
“My dad played soccer in college so I think it would be cool to do it like him,” Richthammer said.
Richthammer says he chose Christendom because he really enjoyed a recruiting event known as “The Best Week Ever.”
He also hinted he might give baseball a go in college.
“We’ll see what happens,” Richthammer said.
