The decision to take a step back in his pursuit of a scholarship to play baseball south of the border turned out to be a wise one for Ethan Wells.

The 19-year-old Pelham resident graduated from Niagara Christian College in 2022 and then took a gap year to try and increase his stock and expand his options.

The decision paid off big time recently when the lanky left-hander accepted an offer from New College Florida in Sarasota.

“Coming out of COVID I only had a couple of offers and didn’t want to commit to somewhere I didn’t want to,” Wells said. “In the last 8-10 months I’ve been contacting coaches, e-mailing, communicating, touring, getting my name out there, doing combines — all things I wasn’t able to do during COVID to get myself seen and then I accumulated tons of offers.”

After sifting through the offers and making visits to a handful of schools, Wells decided on New College.

“There were a couple of schools so it was a little bit difficult,” said Wells, who also seriously considered a Division 2 school in Tennessee as well as a host of Canadian universities. 

“Choosing to go away from home is a big step,” Wells admitted.  It’s far but my sister (Tasha) is down in Florida which is a contributing factor. Being in the States is tough but being that far south is also more difficult.“

The deciding factor came down to a chance to play right away.

“The D2 in Tennessee was really good and the Florida school has a much smaller roster (30) which is nice,” Wells said. “Tennessee has a 60-man roster and two teams.”

Click here to read the full article on BP Sports Niagara.