SOUTH PARIS – Few people who know Matt Verrier were surprised when he announced late last fall that he had verbally committed to play collegiate baseball for the University of Maine – in two years.

Verrier made that decision more than a year before he had to so he could focus on getting ready for his junior year at Oxford Hills.

On the field and off of it, Verrier doesn’t like distractions or dwelling on past successes or failures. He believes keeping a clear head is vital to his success as a hitter and a catcher, and Verrier enjoys a lot of success doing both. He is perhaps the most feared man behind or at the plate in the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference.

“I separate the two. It’s like pitching, you’ve got to clear your mind,” Verrier said. “I can’t catch thinking about my at bat and popping up to the left fielder. I’ve got to take every inning as a new one, a clean slate.”

Behind the plate, he has developed such a reputation for throwing out would-be base stealers that during the second half of his sophomore season, they just stopped trying. And it isn’t just because he has a strong arm.

“I work on my footwork, because foot speed is key,” he said. “I play some long toss to get my arm strong and stretched out.”

At the plate, Verrier can hit to all fields and hit for power.

“I just think about hitting the baseball hard, driving it up the middle,” he said.

“There’s no pitch that can get him out right now,” Oxford Hills coach Shane Slicer said. “His hands are very quick. There’s no one that can throw the ball by him, and that makes him a better hitter because he lets the ball get to him – an off-speed pitch, he can let it travel or a fastball, he can look at it a little longer. He can adjust to everything.”

“His big thing this year is how much patience does he have, because I’ve got a feeling he’s not going to see a whole lot of pitches to hit,” he added.

Slicer is amazed by Verrier’s mental toughness, stamina and consistency.

“I don’t think people realize how demanding catching is and what it does to you at the plate,” Slicer said. “He can catch and he’s not physically drained and mentally drained from that. He comes up and he still can hammer the baseball.”

Verrier has started since his freshman year, and he has been voted a team captain and taken a more vocal role on the Vikings’ young (two seniors) team.

“You’ve got to constantly talk. You’ve got to be a leader out on the field,” Verrier said.

“He sets a pretty good tone every day. He never, ever takes a break from working hard,” Slicer said. “The kids respect that, and he makes others work hard for the most part.”

While Slicer and assistant coach Joe Oufiero have given Verrier more responsibilities in his catching duties over his first two seasons, they haven’t yet allowed him to do what previous catching standouts at Oxford Hills such as Russell Estes and Eric Cavers have done, which is call a game himself. That may change this year.

“I think if there’s any place where he could grow, that’s the one thing,” Slicer said. “Whereas before, Oufiero and I have called the pitches and done all that from the dugout, we want to open that up to him. He’s outstanding in every area, and we hope he can grow into that.”

Verrier said he would welcome the challenge. The way he sees it, being a catcher doesn’t just entail putting one, two or three fingers down and setting a target. A catcher has to be part pitching coach and part psychiatrist, too.

“If they give up a home run, they can’t dwell on it with the next guy or he’ll jack one out,” he said. “Sometimes you have to keep them loose, help them have a clear mind.”

He would know.