On-Campus Report: Quaker Valley's Ethan Moore plans to seize second Division I opportunity

Editor’s note: This article is a part of a weekly series that the Beaver County Times will publish every Wednesday titled the “On-Campus Report,” where sports reporter Parth Upadhyaya will catch up with former Beaver Valley high school stars who are now in the collegiate ranks.

If he’s being honest, there was a time when Jason Moore wasn’t sure a day like this would come.

Jason Moore, his wife, Cassie Moore, four of their children and other extended family members gathered around the living room television in the Moore household in Beaver on Monday to watch Ethan Moore play baseball. Ethan Moore, the son of Jason and Cassie and a second-year infielder for NJCAA Murray State College in Oklahoma, was competing with his teammates against Northern Oklahoma Enid in the Plains District Championship.

The 2019 Quaker Valley High School graduate — NJCAA Division II’s leader this season with 24 home runs — led his team to a 4-1 win. The victory allowed the Aggies to punch their ticket to the NJCAA Division II World Series, which begins in a little less than two weeks in Enid, Oklahoma.

“We’re really proud that he persevered,” Jason Moore said of Ethan. “Not just because of baseball. It’s exciting, obviously, to see how well he’s done and how he’s worked on his craft. But just to see him personally be able to have success after working so hard.”

Ethan Moore, a 6-foot-1, 225-pound slugger, has traveled a turbulent path to get to this point. There were times when he nearly quit on his dream of playing high-level collegiate baseball. But Jason, Cassie and others around him did everything they could to show him why he shouldn’t. Now, here he is: Putting together one of the best seasons in JUCO baseball and recently committing to play at Division I Southeastern Louisiana next season.

Before he even began his junior season at Quaker Valley, Ethan Moore had committed to D-I Kent State. That’s just the level of talent he possessed. The third baseman’s ability to double as a standout pitcher was attractive to a host of colleges, and prior to signing his national letter of intent with the Golden Eagles, he’d garnered interest from Alabama, Coastal Carolina and Old Dominion, among others.

But a torn labrum in his right shoulder that he suffered in the fall of 2018 as a member of the Quakers’ football team changed things. Ethan Moore underwent surgery. He missed his senior season of high school baseball and was ruled out for his freshman campaign at Kent State.

“I couldn’t do anything that I used to be able to do,” recalled Moore, who hasn’t pitched in a game since his injury. “Even the stuff that was easy was very hard. … At that point in my recovery, I didn’t see how I would ever get back to a healthy playing form.”

Fourteen games went by in the 2020 season before COVID-19 prematurely ended the Golden Eagles’ season.

That summer, with collegiate athletes around the country given an extra year of eligibility and uncertainty surrounding Kent State’s roster, Moore said the coaching staff strongly suggested he find somewhere else to continue his college career. Naturally, he was devastated.

“At first, I was ready to be done,” Moore said. “... It caught me off guard. It felt like it was so late (in the offseason) that I wasn’t going to be able to find somewhere to play. It was just like if the school I wanted to go to didn’t really want me, then I wasn’t sure who was going to have open arms for me and be ready for me to come play for them.”

His father and other loved ones convinced him to stay the course, though.

Eventually, he found a new home at Murray State College that fall. Still, returning to himself — both physically after his labrum injury, and mentally after the abrupt end to his time at Kent State — was far from easy. Having to step down to the JUCO level after being considered a D-I talent for most of his life, Moore was embarrassed.

It took almost an entire season, but, soon, he learned to not care what others thought of his journey.

“It was the perfect environment for him to go and grow,” Jason Moore said. “He liked his teammates, and he just liked playing baseball again. I mean, it was like, ‘Forget about what level you’re at. You’re playing baseball. You’re out of high school. You’re still on a baseball team — you’re on a roster. You’re doing well.’”

At this point, “well” might just be an understatement. Ethan Moore took home first-team, all-conference honors this season as a third baseman in Region 2 of NJCAA’s Division II. He’s also broken Murray State College’s career doubles record and single-season home run record this spring. He has had six multi-homer games this season, including a three-homer, six-RBI performance against Carl Albert State. In his final weeks at the school, he has his team inching closer and closer to bringing home a national championship to southern Oklahoma.

While it may have been difficult for Jason Moore to envision a day like Monday arriving nearly two years ago when his son was on the verge of stepping away from the game he’d always loved, he knows the route Ethan took undoubtedly made him a better man.

As Jason Moore and his family huddled around their television earlier this week, it was evident that Ethan Moore was back — and more ready than ever before.

“This year has been really good for me,” Ethan Moore said, “and this is the player that I think I am.”

Contact Parth Upadhyaya at pupadhyaya@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @pupadhyaya.

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