TURNER – Late for a Leavitt baseball game this year and can’t find out the score? Take a look at what kind of bat Chad Schrepper is swinging when he steps up to the plate.

“I’m hoping maybe there are a couple of games where we’re ahead by a lot and I can hit with the wood a couple of times,” said the Hornets’ senior captain.

Whether the object in his hand is ash or alloy, Schrepper always swings a mean piece of lumber. He’s considered one of the top hitters in the KVAC.

Though he’s done all of his damage with aluminum over his career, Schrepper is hoping to get in a few swings this season with a wooden bat in preparation for his college baseball career at Franklin Pierce College. The school is a rapidly rising Division II program that plays in the Northeast-10, an all-wood league.

If the Hornets do get a comfortable enough lead for Schrepper to swing the wood, chances are he will have played a big part in helping them get there.

The first and only Leavitt player to make KVAC first team all-conference in the school’s brief history in the league, Schrepper hit .520 last season while leading the Hornets in nearly every offensive category.

“Last year, he was really the only guy that hit a ton for us. He’d get on base, but nobody else was really hitting a lot to get him in. This year, hopefully we have a little more balance,” Leavitt coach Dave Morin said.

The Hornets were balanced enough last year to push Mt. Ararat, the eventual Eastern A champions, to extra innings in the first round of the playoffs. Schrepper hopes that’s just the start of better things to come for Leavitt baseball.

“I’d like to help out this program as much as I can. This program’s been struggling for the last couple of years, ever since we moved to Class A,” he said. “I’d like to move a step further in the playoffs and build the program back up to what it used to be back when they won the (Class B) state championship in 1996.”

“The biggest thing that Chad has brought to us is commitment,” Morin said. “He’s worked hard at being the best he can be. This is a tough sport, and if your don’t do all of the extras, you can’t help but be mediocre. He’s taken it the extra yard. He’s done a lot in the off-season with his hitting. That’s what’s made him the hitter that he is.”

Schrepper is originally from Wales and grew up playing baseball with many of the players who made up the nucleus of last year’s Class B champions, Oak Hill.

He has attended Leavitt since he was a freshman and has carved out a distinguished four-year career there in both baseball and football. He was a halfback/quarterback for the Hornets this past fall and earned all-conference and Sun Journal all-state honorable mention recognition. He’s also been selected to play in the Lobster Bowl this summer.

But as much as he’s enjoyed his success of the gridiron, Schrepper says baseball is what pumps through his veins.

“Football was a great time. I’d have to say it’s the most family-oriented, team-oriented sport around. There’s no other feeling that you can get going under the lights on a Friday night. You don’t have that in baseball,” he said. “But I grew up with baseball, really. That’s the sport I really love.”

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