Nottingham alumnus Matt Patterson was batting .336 with 30 RBI for Alvernia University entering the NCAA Division III baseball tournament.
Some changes have more of a lasting impact than others.
Take Matt Patterson for example. As a junior on the Nottingham High baseball team, Patterson made an alteration to his batting stance. To this day, the change is still with him, as he has become one of the top hitters on the Alvernia University baseball team.
“I pretty much told myself if I start closed—because I have that natural step—it will keep my stance balanced and my swing balanced. It worked pretty well in high school. It helped a lot just making contact, I just struck out once my whole junior year. I stuck with it, and it’s worked out pretty well.”
The numbers will bear that out. After a standout career for Nottingham and North Trenton American Legion, Patterson played for Mercer County Community College his freshman year and hit a team-high .458 with seven doubles and 27 RBI.
He didn’t immediately go to MCCC, however, after being recruited by Flagler College in Florida. But the atmosphere was a little too uptight at Flagler for Patterson, and he left after a month. It was too late to get into a four-year school and play at that point, so Mercer was his best option.
“Mercer was good. It definitely got me to that next step.” Patterson said. “I was wondering after high school how college baseball was gonna be. After a few games with some real good county players it helped make the adjustment easy, and I knew I could definitely play at this level.”
He says the pitching was better than what he had seen in high school.
“Everyone (at the junior college level) has that one guy who pumps it up to around 90 (on their fastball), and the pitchers around them are all decent pitchers, so junior college kind of set the tone for what I had to see at Alvernia.”
He adapted well, hitting .347 with nine doubles, two triples, two homers and 30 RBI his first year at at the Pennsylvania-based school. This season, with the Crusaders entering the NCAA Division III Tournament for the fifth straight year, Patterson was hitting .336 with 15 doubles, three triples, a homer, 30 RBI and 28 runs scored.
“I handled it pretty well,” he said of the jump to a four-year school. “I played last year and got a lot of reps under my belt. This year I’m hitting in same spot. Not much has changed. We had a lot of the same guys in the lineup. I’m doing the same thing I’ve been doing and it’s been working out very well.”
All with that same stance he discovered in the spring of 2009.
“I’ve pretty much kept the same thing,” he said. “I haven’t changed it since that junior year. I haven’t hit that real big slump yet to really change it. The confidence has always been there.”
That’s not to say Patterson hasn’t had his slumps. But his hot streaks have more than made up for them.
“I thought Matt played very well for us,” said Jim Maher, who coached Patterson on the Trenton Generals of the Atlantic Coast Baseball League last summer. “As a typical power-hitting righthander, he would go through stretches where he’d struggle with the breaking ball. Like any good hitter, he’s at his best when he starts laying off it.
“He had two stretches where carried us, and two stretches where he struggled. A lot of it is pitch selection. It’s a lot like Ryan Howard. When he’s hitting well he’s going to the opposite field. When Matty had one stretch where he was on fire, he was hitting a lot of balls to center and right center. He had a great year for us, facing Division I pitchers and having great power numbers. “
Both coach and player felt Patterson’s exposure to top-flight collegiate pitching in the Atlantic Coast Baseball League helped his progression. He hit .293 with four doubles, a triple, two homers and 22 RBI.
“That was a big help,” Patterson said. “You’re seeing the best in Division III and Division II pitchers, and a bunch of Division I pitchers scattered all around.
“You’re seeing great pitching every day in that league. So you go from that, and come to Alvernia, you’re not seeing everyone’s ace every day. That really helped with the timing. It really got me prepared for seeing the velocity of the stronger pitchers and power pitchers. Pretty much every day, you were seeing a stud.”
Maher feels it’s almost imperative for a player to participate in some kind of summer collegiate league if they want to improve.
“You want to play in leagues where you get tested to be a better player,” he said. “I give Matt credit for his commitment. Some kids don’t want to put in the commitment. Some kids want to show up at an independent league on Saturday and Sunday and play a few games against high school kids and guys who are 50 years old.”
Aside from his individual success this spring, Patterson was also part of a history-making Crusader team that won its first Centennial Conference Tournament to earn an automatic bid into the NCAAs. The squad includes redshirt pitcher Matt Backlund from Steinert (and Patterson’s roommate), Allentown’s Anthony Gambino and Notre Dame’s Brian Witkowski.
“I was talking to a lot of seniors who have been here for four years and they’ve come close, but never reached that,” Patterson said. “It was something they really wanted. So it feels really good that coming here for my second year I can help them get there and win it for the first time.”
And he did it with the same approach that has worked for the past four years.
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