Taylor Waitley is Western Carolina’s steady, two-way catcher with bat-to-ball pop and elite reliability behind the plate
Waitley enters 2026 as Western Carolina’s veteran backstop and a dependable fit for a team that values contact, versatility, and defensive trust: in 2025 she hit .208 with 20 hits, five doubles, a triple, seven runs, nine RBI, 34 starts behind the plate, a .995 fielding percentage, and five runners caught stealing, and she later closed her career with 2026 benchmarks of 57 hits, 33 RBI, 38 runs, eight stolen bases, and nine runners thrown out[1][3][4]. She also earned CSC Academic All-District recognition and has been praised as the veteran leader in a catching platoon, which points to a player whose value goes beyond box-score power[3][4].
