SENIOR WEEKS: After missing his junior year with fractured vertebrae, Coatesville’s Cole Rupp was raring to go in 2020

For every local senior playing a spring sport, the 2020 season was the one they waited their whole athletic careers for.
For Coatesville’s speedy senior outfielder Cole Rupp, it was much more than that.
Rupp hasn’t played much baseball in the last few years, thanks to three fractured vertebrae in his back, that cost him his junior season at Coatesville.
So, needless to say, Rupp was ready to prove he was back in 2020.
But then his senior season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We were really ready to make a mark in the Ches-Mont this season,” Rupp said. “We felt like we had the pitching and our lineup was solid. We were the underdogs again this season and we were out to show everybody that Coatesville baseball was back. To not have a season was like a shot to the heart. It was very depressing and sad. We wanted to bring the heat to the rest of the league. Downingtown East had a good pitching staff but I think our pitchers would have held them down and we could score enough runs to win against them.”
Coatesville head coach Hal Ziegler was excited to get Rupp back in his Red Raider lineup as the senior would have provided a big shot in the arm. And with speed to spare, Ziegler was counting on Rupp to run wild on the base paths.
“Cole would have been right in the middle of everything,” Ziegler said. “He can hit and run and he was going to steal a lot bases for us. It’s a shame he lost two seasons back to back. He is a real good player.”
Rupp knows his speed would disrupt other Ches-Mont League teams and he set some lofty goals for himself this season.
“My goal was to steal 25 bases this season and to use my legs to run down at least 95 percent of fly balls to the outfield,” Rupp said. “My speed is a serious part of my game and I don’t think other teams would have been ready for it. You cannot teach speed and it is a very big part of my game.”
In the fall, Rupp will bring his game to Division III SUNY Cobleskill in New York to help jumpstart a baseball program that has been on the rise in the 2019 season. He might end up playing a few games close to home, since SUNY Cobleskill plays in the North Eastern Athletic Conference, alongside three Penn State satellite schools (Berks, Abington and Harrisburg), as well as Lancaster Bible College.
“The coaches and the program is really coming on,” Rupp said. “They went from a 3-20 season in 2018 to 18-17 last season and they made it to the league playoffs. I am real excited about going up there and being a part of building on that success.”