Concord’s Wachter rescinds college baseball commitment to Hartford

Jonah Wachter is paying close attention to this week’s Major League Baseball Draft.

No, the Concord High School graduate isn’t waiting frantically for his name to be called. Instead, the 2021 NHIAA baseball tournament star pitcher is weighing his college options with every selection.

Wachter, the 6-foot, 2-inch, 180-pound right-handed pitcher, who in 18 postseason innings on the mound allowed just one hit, is now a free agent in the college recruiting game.

In a June 30 tweet, Wachter announced that he was rescinding his commitment to the University of Hartford and is looking for a new college to attend this fall. In that tweet, Wachter includes a brief highlight video and his statistics for his senior season of varsity action: 106 strikeouts and a 0.593 earned run average in 59 innings pitched.

“Hartford dropping from Division I to III was a part of my decision,” Wachter said, “but there’s also a coaching change happening. I really just want to go to a school where they respect their athletes and want their athletes to thrive there. I just don’t think Hartford was a good environment for that any longer.”

It didn’t take long for his Twitter inbox to fill up with direct messages from coaches and recruiters of baseball programs nationwide, including perennial Division I powers Tulane University in New Orleans and Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. Wachter has a four-pitch arsenal – a fastball currently topping out at 93 mph, as well as a slider, curveball and changeup all ranging from 76-83 mph – that coaches would love to have in their rotation.

“There were already college coaches that were reaching out to my coaches to ask about me being uncommitted,” Wachter said. “I just fully decided to pull the trigger, releasing my NLI, and I’m now uncommitted.”

It seems his 2021 tournament success –  a six-inning perfect game in a 10-0 opening round win over Goffstown, a 3-1 quarterfinal win over Bedford, a save in the Crimson Tide’s 6-4 semifinal win over Keene, and then his 4-0 no-hitter versus Winnacunnet in the title game – made him a hot commodity on the open market. Having already gone through the recruiting process once was tiring enough, but to be in that situation again, and have a time crunch to deal with is weighing heavily on Wachter.

“It’s been very stressful,” Wachter said. “I did not expect for it to blow up the way it did after I tweeted. I gained 250 Twitter followers because of that tweet and video. The first day I had over 70 text messages and like 30 calls. I was trying my best to answer all of them.”

Wachter’s high school coach, Scott Owen, is doing his best to calm Wachter and reassure the 4.0 student to trust the process.

“I think it’s going to all work out,” Owen said. “I think within the next week to week and a half he’s going to have all of his offers in and be able to weigh his decision and then make one.”

There’s always a chance a major league team takes a late-round flier on Wachter. That thought hasn’t really crossed the 17-year-old’s mind. He’s more focused on the draft to see what scholarship money will free up when other players are drafted from colleges still on his radar.

“I’m focused on going to college,” Wachter said. “I’ve always had it in my mind that I’d go to school, work on a degree and develop as a pitcher, then consider the idea of maybe being drafted while in college. School and getting that degree is my main focus. Baseball has been more of a way for me to not have to pay a lot or anything to get that degree. If there’s professional baseball in my future that would be amazing, but that’s not my priority at the moment.”

Wachter’s high school coach wasn’t surprised by his former player’s outlook on the situation.

“He’s got his head screwed on right,” Owen said. “That’s what I’ve told all of these coaches. As great of a pitcher he is, he’s a better person. He’s humble, he works hard and he has it all in perspective – which is hard to do at his age. I don’t think he thought he was going to get all this attention, which really speaks to how humble he is.”

Wachter didn’t think he’d be hearing from some of the nations top junior college programs all the way up to Division I powers. He was expecting a few schools that wanted him prior to his Hartford commitment to reach back out. He currently has 28 Division I schools that he’s evaluating.

“You never know I guess,” Owen said. “He might not have expected this, but I did think he was going to get legitimate interest.

“Did I think Tulane and Pepperdine would be calling? No. But they are, so that’s pretty telling. I told him that even if those don’t work out, or they don’t offer you, the fact that these types of schools are interested in you speaks volumes about what people think about you. It doesn’t always matter if it works out or not. Sometimes it’s just that you do belong on this stage. You do deserve this chance.”