Eckelman Feels Right At Home As A Buckeye

BRECKSVILLE - Mason Eckelman is “ready to follow in the footsteps of my dad and uncle winning a Big 10 championship there.”

It took a decommitment from Michigan, but the Walsh Jesuit senior can now claim Ohio State as his future home, the school where his father Alex and uncle Scott Kaczmar played in the 1990s.

“Being able to see the support Ohio State gets, and to carry on the family tradition, knowing that everybody is behind my back and that family is not too far away and can come watch me play … this is awesome,” the top-rated 2023 catcher in Ohio said. “With the atmosphere that Ohio State has, and the support of the fan base, hearing from my dad and uncle and the people they know and played with and how they’re still involved, it means a lot to be part of this.”

A coaching change at Michigan helped make it all happen for the 17-year-old, who grew up an Ohio State fan before committing to Michigan to play baseball back in 2020.

“When rumors were going around, that’s when it started kicking in and I became unsure of what was going on,” Eckelman reflected on Michigan head coach Erik Bakich and top assistant Nick Schnabel moving on from Ann Arbor to take over the program at Clemson. “I saw it was probably going to happen and I’m like, ‘what’s the next step?’ I thought it was the best opportunity for me to decommit and open my options back up.

“Ohio State was one of my options and I was hearing good things about the new staff from my buddies,” Eckelman continued, referring to a coaching change at OSU that took place about the same time as the one at Michigan with Bill Mosiello named the new head coach of the Buckeyes. “Less than a week after they announced they were going to Clemson I almost instantly started hearing from coach Mo. When I started to get to know the coaching staff it seemed like a great place for me. They were similar to coach Bakich and coach Schnabel. I knew the coaches at Ohio State had been around success and it’s a program that’s going to have success in the near future. I’m excited to be a part of it.”

There numerous other schools that showed an interest in the 25th-ranked senior catcher in the nation, who had a visit to Alabama while also talking to Clemson, Michigan, Creighton and Lipscomb.

“Those were the big ones that jumped on the opportunity of recruiting me right away,” Eckelman noted.

But it was Ohio State where the left-handed hitting backstop felt most at home.

“It was all pretty rapid,” Eckelman said. “I’m extremely grateful for their commitment to me early on and what they did to get me to go there. From day one they stuck with me.”

Eckelman, who visited the university in Columbus for the Notre Dame football game, received some information about OSU from his cousin Henry Kaczmar, a teammate at Walsh Jesuit who also decommitted from Michigan and is now headed to Ohio State.

“Henry helped a lot,” Eckelman said. “He was able to share with me about inside the program and give a glimpse of what it was like when he got there.”

It has the fifth-rated 2023 in Ohio going to the same school where his parents met in the late ’90s, his father a baseball player and mom a member of the soccer team.

“My family went there and they love Ohio State,” Eckelman noted. “They’ve been super supportive and let me pick what was right for me. They’ve been awesome through the whole process.”

The 6-2 215-pounder, whose father is the vice president of hitting for the Cleveland Guardians, had been doing some pitching in addition to catching but that has now changed after a shoulder impingement in late summer.

“With the injury I came to the realization I’m not going to pitch any more,” the 265th-ranked senior in the country explained. “That’s our plan right now. I’m going to focus on the catching aspect.”

Eckelman, who carries a 3.4 GPA at Walsh Jesuit and is looking at a major in kinesiology at Ohio State with plans to go into physical therapy, believes he can be a huge asset to the baseball program of the Buckeyes.

“I’m ready to bring energy,” Eckelman said. “I’m ready to help build the program up to where coach Mo wants it to be. I’m ready to be involved in the atmosphere coach Mo wants it in. I’m going to work every day and compete at the highest level to help us get where coach Mo wants - the College World Series. I’m ready to get after it and ready to be a part of it.”

The new commitment does bring a change at home, however, for Eckelman.

“I’m someone who likes to represent his school,” Eckelman related. “There is a bunch of (Michigan) apparel sitting in my room, a lot of T-shirts and flags, that I have to figure out what to do with. Now I’m in the transfer mode of getting my Ohio State stuff back out again.”