Community

A World Series of messages, ideas Monday at Mountaineer Middle

MORGANTOWN - He was back in the dugout watching the next batter when the sting kicked in.

On his belly, that is.

"Yeah, I hit and bounced first - then I slid," Armani Guzman told a rapt audience of students at Mountaineer Middle School on Monday morning.

"My stomach actually hurt."

Guzman, the star centerfielder for West Virginia University's equally luminescent men's baseball team, was talking about the run he stole to announce the presence of the Mountaineers in the College Baseball World Series over the summer.

Yes, stole.

After seasons and seasons of Wait 'til Next Year, the Mountaineers finally made the show in Omaha.

During that first-ever game against Troy, Guzman took a big lead on third - and then hit the jets to get the 'Eers on the board.

Belly first, as said.

It was also the first time in 20 years a player stole home in the series, which meant Guzman owned the sports shows and their highlight compilations for the rest of that day.

Working hard, and not being afraid to take controlled risks in your future career, as he told the Mountaineer Middle students, was why he was there.

And Guzman, a New York City native who decided to forgo the Major League Baseball draft for one more season in Morgantown - and the sports management degree that goes with it - is also banking on life after his playing days are done.

He was joined by teammates J.T. Huether, Dave Perez and Creed Erdos, who all said the same for the morning.

The quartet was there as part of the K-12 speaker's bureau for the West Virginia Public Education Collaborative, which is housed at WVU.

"The whole country was rooting for this team," said Donna Peduto, the former Marion County Schools teacher and reading specialist who serves as the collaborative's executive director.

"Our speakers today all have great, inspiring messages," she continued. "They're really going to resonate with the kids."

J.T. Heuther, the rock-steady relief pitcher from Fort Myers, Fla., who held his opponents to a collective .063 batting average at the plate, talked about how anything, and everything, coaches ever told him always seems to apply to the classroom and life in general.

Same for Creed Erdos, the dependable catcher and finance major from suburban Pittsburgh who was also All-State and All-Conference in high school - though his induction into the National Honor Society, he allowed, just may have carried a little more weight at the kitchen table.

Dave Perez, meanwhile, talked about hard work in the classroom while being just as persistent in physical therapy. The pitcher from Philadelphia with the 97 mph fastball suffered an ACL tear in the regional tournament during the spring.

These days he's dogged in his rehab so he can get back on the mound.

Which, in turn resonated with Mountaineer Middle's Grayson Tucker, a wide receiver for the Hawks who went down with a substantial injury earlier this season and is currently navigating his school on crutches.

"It felt good hearing from somebody who knows what it's like and is coming back," he said.