Mei Dennison
The Ithaca College baseball team boasts four catchers on its roster. Senior Tyler Pugliese throws the ball back to the pitcher in a game against the St. Lawrence University Saints on March 22.
From 2020-23 the backstop at Freeman Field was primarily protected by the prowess of catcher Gil Merod ’23. Now, the Bombers have leveraged a four catcher rotation to try and replace Merod, creating a competitive bond that has pushed the team throughout the season.
The Bombers currently roster five catchers, seniors Tyler Pugliese and Logan Scully, junior Ethan Daddabbo, sophomore Owen Callahan, and first-year student Justin Navarro. Thus far into the 2025 season, Pugliese has caught eight games, Scully has caught eight games, Daddabbo has caught six games and Callahan has caught two games.
This split time has been common for the past two seasons, with the team settling on Pugliese to be the main man for the 2024 Liberty League Championships and the NCAA Championships. Pugliese said that before the beginning of the 2025 season, the job was back up for grabs and every catcher would have to prove why they should start.
“It wasn’t really ’till the second-half of last year where I was pretty much our everyday guy,” Pugliese said. “I was kind of expecting that a little bit more going into this season but we all kind of split our time and I understood — and I think we all do, especially from the coach’s side. … We’re just looking for consistency and who could just go out there and just be a dude on an everyday basis.”
While the coaching staff is currently in the process of deciding who will be the primary catcher for the back half of the season, head coach David Valesente said that having four catchers who can play at any given time has been a luxury for the team.
“We typically carry three varsity catchers,” Valesente said. “It is a position that’s pretty injury prone, just with the nature of guys getting beat up and things can happen. We typically don’t catch one guy every single game. Gil was a kind of unique case. We’re playing over 50 games a year and it’s pretty taxing. I know some guys in the big leagues catch almost every day but ideally we have two really strong catchers.”
Both Pugliese and Scully transferred to Ithaca College in 2023 after having experienced time at the Division l level. Pugliese came to the team after two years at Division l University of Albany and Scully came in after one year at Division l George Mason University and another year at Cloud County Community College. Pugliese played in 31 games for the Danes, while Scully did not see action for the Patriots in his lone season there. Both were aware of each other when they committed.
Rather than start their time with the Bombers on an adversarial note, they began rooming together and said they have formed a tight friendship. Pugliese said that even with the competition for playing time, the catching squad’s cohesion and camaraderie is strong.
“Ever since we stepped on the field we knew that we were competing against each other but we’re always going to feed off of each other,” Pugliese said. “We have built such a great relationship over the last couple of years and honestly in terms of skill wise we are all right next to each other. So it’s been a cool two years going back and forth.”
Callahan came in the same year as the seniors and said the loyalty to each other has been unbreakable, with everyone thinking from a team perspective. Callahan said he owes a lot of his development to the guidance and mentorship of the guys in the room.
“We’re super tight, they’re like three of my older brothers [along] with like three of my best friends on campus,” Callahan said. “I look up to them and I’m very grateful for the role they play cause they’ve definitely gotten me a lot better. I saw them doing their thing and they had great seasons last year. [Seeing that] I knew that I had to get better.”
While friendly competition has brewed within the catchers’ room, that same bond is felt between the players throwing to them. Senior pitcher Colin Leyner has been the ace of the Bombers pitching staff for the past two seasons and had ample experience throwing to Merod. Now with Leyner throwing to multiple catchers, he said the options behind the plate is not something that slows down the pitcher to catcher connection on the field.
“Our whole staff is obviously close to our catchers and we want to take care of them,” Leyner said. “They’re our guys, so I think having a close team bond, which is what we’ve built, shows that you can throw any catcher in there and whoever is on the mound is confident throwing to them. Even if it’s Daddabbo, Pugs, Scully, or OC, we know that they will do a great job back there and we trust them.”
With the rotating format, certain pitcher/catcher combinations have been commonplace. For instance, first-year pitcher Ethan Murley has thrown all of his starts to Pugliese and Leyner has split his starts between Pugliese and Daddabbo. Valesente said they get their pitcher’s opinions on what they like but game-time decisions are not squarely based around it.
“It’s a shared effort, we let catchers call a little bit, we also call some,” Valesente said. “Certain guys do like throwing, they’re fortunate to throw to several really good catchers so there isn’t anybody that really stands out as somebody they don’t like to throw to. We’re fortunate in that way.”
Callahan said that since the catching position can be so taxing on the body, having depth at the position can give the Bombers an upperhand.
“It’s hard to catch every game, so having four guys that you can trust is huge because someone’s always gonna be banged up, someone is always gonna be slumping at the plate,” Callahan said. “I mean, most of the teams we play, they trot out the same catcher every game, maybe they’ll mix in the back up. They don’t trust their third and fourth guys.”
Scully said the group often talks about how the Bombers have the best catching group in the country and that the depth they have is something unique to only the South Hill Squad While that depth could make it feel like someone is breathing down your back at every second, Scully said it just makes him and the group work harder.
“A hungry wolf is going to eat before the full wolf, if you know that there’s other guys who are really good behind you, you never quite get comfortable, which I think is a good thing when you push yourself like that,” Scully said. “Everybody’s working hard every day to try to earn their spot.”
That push to fight for the number one spot is felt by every catcher in the room but they have not quit. Every catcher has chosen to compete because of their commitment to the team. As of right now, Valesente said the team will just have to wait and see who emerges.
“That’s been a frustration on our end, trying to find a guy that can be the number one,” Valesente said. “Unfortunately in our eyes and performance wise we haven’t seen somebody that has stepped up and taken that role. Catchers need to do so many things well, they need to manage our pitching staff, they need to be good receivers, good blockers, they need to obviously have emotion and be able to separate offense and defense. We have four really good catchers and it has been just kind of a stressful process of finding the guy that’s going to step up and be the guy.”