Seniors had to work through a lot of loss because of the effects that COVID-19 had on schools last spring and on society in general over the summer. For student-athletes, losing the spring sports season dealt quite a blow, which was felt especially by seniors. For one of those seniors though, the loss hit even harder.

Emmaus’s Jadon Diaz not only had his final season of high school baseball wiped out, but he lost much of his junior season to an injury. As he worked to come back from a pulled hip muscle and breaking off the tip of his pelvis, Diaz thought about the senior season. The injury came during a spat of injuries to Emmaus catchers that saw the team reach far down the depth chart to its fourth-string catcher and Diaz felt for his teammates.

“Our catchers did well for us,” said Diaz looking back on that time. “I was surprised by how well they played and that was a good job by them.”

Diaz was ready to go for the 2020 season and was hoping to go out on a high note with a team that had all the makings of being a contender for a District 11 championship. Then, practice was halted and before long, the season was canceled. Fortunately, another opportunity would arise for Diaz and the rest of the team when the St. Luke’s Lehigh Valley High School Baseball Tournament was put together.

“I was quite sad for a few days, both me and the other seniors,” said Diaz. “We would get together and we just were so sad about losing our senior seasons. Then a few weeks later, we heard about this tournament and we knew we had to get back to work.”

The team was able to practice two or three times a week and some of the players gathered for extra workouts as best they could. Things started to take shape and Emmaus rolled through pool play with a 3-0 record, including a 1-0 win over Northwestern, the team expected to contend with Emmaus for top spot in the pool. As it ended up, Northwestern didn’t make it out of pool play and Emmaus went on to record a perfect 7-0 record and win the tournament championship.

For the Hornets, Diaz is one of those guys who doesn’t always get the spotlight, but he possibly plays as big of a role with the team as anyone. Coach Jeremy Haas has not overlooked the contribution that Diaz makes to the team in every game.

“He had a really good tournament and he’s going to be missed around here,” said Haas. “He is probably the best receiving catcher I’ve ever seen and he actually came to our program as a shortstop, so his growth has really been exponential. I have a lot harder job next wear without Jadon Diaz and it hurts to know that he lost his junior and senior years, because he didn’t get to show how great he really is and that’s unfortunate.”

Diaz is the perfect example of some of the damage that the coronavirus may have caused for high school players. Because of his injury in 2019 and no season in 2020, Diaz’ chances of catching the eye of college scouts was greatly diminished. Rather than possibly getting an offer to play college baseball somewhere, Diaz will attend East Stroudsburg University where he will major in athletic training and attempt to make the baseball team as a walk-on.

“This tournament has just been amazing,” said Diaz. “After having our season taken away and to come back and win this and be the best team in the area is just truly amazing. We worked hard for this and we believed we could get here, so this helps get over not having a full season. It just helps reinforce what we thought of our team all along.”