RICHMOND, Ky. - Eastern Kentucky University baseball coach Jim Ward has announced the signing of catcher Mike Schneider of Northampton, PA, to a letter-of-intent.

Schneider, 6-4, 200, played at Northampton High School and hit .348 this past season with five home runs and 21 runs batted in. He was an unanimous first-team All-Mountain Valley Conference selection and also was named Player of the Year in that league last season. He was also a two-year Carpenter Cup Series All-Star.

"Mike is a quality catcher with Division I catching and throwing skills," said Ward. "He was outstanding in the prestigious Carpenter Cup Series, hitting a home run in Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

"We definitely needed to add a quality catcher to our roster to backup Joe Smith and we are extremely pleased that Mike selected EKU to continue his academic and baseball career."

Schneider hit .361 with no homers and 13 runs batted in as a sophomore and .421 with four home runs and 33 RBI's as a junior. His career marks at Northampton showed a .379 batting average, nine homers, 67 RBI's and .990 fielding percentage, committing only five errors in his high school career.

The son of Mike and Nancy Schneider of Northampton, Mike plans on majoring in special education/physical education at EKU this fall.

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