Masters ace pitcher Henry Hubner will be moving on to the next level to pitch for the Bard College Raptors. Hubner has achieved many milestones throughout his Masters career, including a monumental complete game where he shut-out the Wooster school and recorded 10 strikeouts and allowed just one hit. That game was his first career Masters win and complete game.
Hubner is a tall 6’3 right-hander, weighing 165 pounds with a nice arsenal of pitches. He can throw an 84-mile-per-hour fastball along with a nasty slider and change-up that sits in the 70-mile-per-hour range. This year, he’s also developed an effective curveball that he’s been throwing live in game as well.
This season he has pitched 27.2 innings, and owns a 1.265 ERA along with a 0.867 WHIP and a monstrous 54 strikeouts. Along with his stellar pitching, Hubner has also been an effective hitter. Thus far in the season, he has been hitting .391 with an OPS of 1.012.
Hubner said he has dreamed of playing college ball for a long time. He first picked up a baseball at three years old and has been playing ever since. He said, “I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember. The first team I played for was tee ball when I was three for the first time.” He continued, “After tee ball I played on a Little League team, then in middle school, high school, and now college. I’ve always just wanted to play baseball.” Hubner has always loved playing baseball and didn’t want to give that up, which is what motivated him to play hard and get recruited for college ball.
Hubner has been the captain of the Masters team for the last two years and has embraced being a leader on the field. He said, “As you become an upperclassman, your speaking role on the team changes, whether it’s in the dugout, or in huddles. I feel like I’ve tried to step into that as best I can. From making the younger kids feel welcome to trying to make everybody feel like we’re here working together, striving towards something. It can be really fun when everybody buys in and we succeed.”
Fellow senior and co-captain Connor Toporroff Richman has been playing with Hubner since their freshman year. He said, “It’s been great to have the opportunity to play along-side him especially as a co-captain for many years because he’s always had immense talent and is so knowledgeable about baseball that his ‘Baseball IQ’ rubs off on the entire team. I am super excited for Henry to continue his baseball career at a higher level and I hope he’s able to continue to grow as both a pitcher and an overall baseball player.”
Hubner is grateful for all of his coaches and mentors through his journey, but he is especially grateful for his late father who introduced him to baseball. He said, “My dad was the one who I first started playing with. He passed away the summer going into my junior year. He’s totally someone I’ve thought of all the time since and he put me on to baseball, and started playing catch with him in the backyard.”
Hubner is excited to work hard and be a part of the Bard team. He said, “I’m so excited; for the first time, I’m living with the guys that you’re working out with. I’ll be around the guys working out together, like, you know, eating together, playing together. I think it’s going to be the most structured experience in baseball I’ve had.”
Bard College is an NCAA Division III school and plays in the Liberty League. This season the Raptors closed their season with a record of 6-26 and a win percentage of .062% Hubner looks to add strength and stability to the team’s rotation while working to get better and increase his pitching velocity.
