Prep Baseball Report

Burkholder Makes His Decision, Verbally Commits To Louisville



By Nathan Rode
National Supervisor 

At 6-foot-6, 190 pounds and with a fastball that sits in the high 80s, RHP Noah Burkholder (Crown Point HS, IN) was one of the top pitchers being recruited in the 2015 class. But he’s made his college decision and is no longer on the open recruiting market.

“Louisville,” Burkholder said. “It came down to Coach Williams to be quite honest. I think he will do the best job of developing me. It's also real close to home.”

Burkholder made verbal commitment Tuesday night and is happy to finally have made what he calls the hardest decision of his life with it coming down to Louisville, North Carolina and Vanderbilt.

“I loved Vanderbilt. I loved North Carolina. And I loved Louisville,” he said. “It came down to who was going to develop me more and where I could do that the closest to home.

“I can just go out there and throw now and focus on getting better. I don't have to worry about colleges watching me 24/7. I know where I'm going.”

Burkholder has a high, athletic leg kick and can sit 86-89, touching 90. He also mixes in a sharp breaking ball. He was also recently selected by USA Baseball to participate in the 2014 18U Team Trials.

Just a junior, Burkholder knows he has plenty to work on in baseball and is looking forward to progressing as a pitcher.

“I need to repeat my mechanics better and fine tune some things,” he said. “One of the things is, I feel like I'm pretty mentally strong, but I need to get where I can be as mentally strong as possible. So when I go on to Louisville I can handle that stress of college baseball and the tempo on all that.”