For catcher Emily Reinstein, maturing quickly was a necessity, not a choice.
Yet, it has become her greatest strength.
Born and raised in East Windsor, N.J., Reinstein played as many sports as possible starting at a young age. Throughout elementary and middle school, Reinstein dipped her toes into basketball, field hockey and cross country. Despite having a plethora of options to choose from, her heart always belonged to softball.
After beginning her playing career with tee-ball at just three years old, the moment Reinstein first put on catcher’s gear in sixth grade solidified that softball would be her path moving forward. However, Reinstein’s mom, Ami, was not initially a fan of her daughter’s desired position.
“My mom did not want me to be a catcher,” Reinstein said in an interview with The Statesman. “She told my coaches, ‘Absolutely do not let Emily put on any catcher’s gear.’ One day, they put me in catcher’s gear when she went to get coffee and my coach told her, ‘You have to let her stick with this. She’s got a lot of potential.’ I really loved it.”
Though she discovered her love for the position Reinstein ultimately stuck with for the rest of her career, sixth grade also represented a speed bump in her life. During that year, her dad, Harold, was diagnosed with cancer.
Soon after, her mom was involved in a potentially life-threatening car accident. While stopped at a red light near Rutgers University, Ami was struck from behind by a truck and sent over the median before being hit again on her passenger side by an oncoming tractor-trailer.
“Thank goodness we caught the cancer at a pretty good time and were fortunately able to get it cleared up and taken care of,” Reinstein said. “The timing was just terrible. As soon as we got that settled with my dad, my mom got into that bad car accident. She took me to all my games and the day of the accident was the first game she ever missed. She was out of commission for a while.”
With both of her parents dealing with major health scares, Reinstein had to mature at a faster pace than most kids her age. Nevertheless, being a caregiver was not a foreign concept to her. As the eldest sibling by four years, Reinstein constantly looked out for her younger brother, Jake, who is on the autism spectrum and was formally diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome.
Throughout their childhood, Reinstein accompanied Jake to his physical therapy appointments and made sure to watch after him, which only strengthened their sibling bond.
“Our relationship is awesome,” Reinstein said. “We’re complete opposites to the extreme, which I think brings us closer. Growing up and wanting to protect him from all the outside things has made us very close. We don’t argue and we go to all of each other’s important events. He feels safer when I’m around because he always knew I was there to have his back.”
Like her opposites-attract relationship with her brother, Reinstein’s love of sports was mostly a stark contrast to the rest of her family. Reinstein described Jake as a “theater kid” and added that Harold has zero sports background. Ami played a bit of softball and basketball in high school, but her playing career came to a halt after a different car accident shattered her knuckles.
Nevertheless, softball ended up consuming Reinstein’s time, as her passion for the sport grew naturally without anyone pushing it on her. With the leadership qualities Reinstein had already developed through life itself, being a backstop made all the sense in the world.
“It helped me learn what failure feels like,” Reinstein said. “But I also felt such a large amount of success. In basketball, you can score 20 points per game, but in softball, you can only throw out so many runners or have so many hits. On top of that, you can create such great bonds with people, travel, network and just do all those amazing things some sports don’t allow.”
Regarding the travel aspect, Reinstein was loyal and opted not to bounce around. She played for just two travel softball teams: the East Windsor Thunder from 2013 to 2016 and the South Jersey Mystics from 2017 until graduating from high school, forming family-like bonds with both.
In addition to travel ball, Reinstein went to Notre Dame High School — a private high school in Lawrence Township, N.J. — in order to play softball. There, she played on the varsity team through all four years and was a captain for three of them.
However, Reinstein credits her time with Mystics head coach Stacy Jackson for best preparing her to play at the collegiate level.
“I still talk to [Jackson] all the time,” Reinstein said. “She was outstanding and really prepped us for what the college world is like. I’m very fortunate because some people don’t get that experience. She was hard on us and only took on the girls she saw potential in. She really helped me take the hits I needed to take to get better.”
Not only did travel softball help Reinstein prepare for college, but they are also the reason she landed with the Seawolves. The school was put on her radar when outfielder Shauna Nuss, who was her Mystics teammate at the time, committed to Stony Brook University.
While playing in the now-defunct Diamond 9 tournament, Reinstein was helping out another team prior to a Mystics game and made a diving play behind the plate. Head coach Megan Bryant happened to be there to witness it all and the rest was history.
“After [Bryant] saw me make that play, she was in constant communication with [Jackson],” Reinstein said. “I looked more into it, and Stony Brook treated me well. They were one of the first schools to call, we set up the quickest possible time for me to see the campus and that was the day I committed. It created that safeness of ‘This is going to be my home for the next four years.’”
Along with the on-field benefits, the campus and location were also attractive for Reinstein and her family alike.
“The campus felt very comfortable and even my younger brother felt that,” Reinstein said. “Knowing that Jake felt okay with me being that far away was nice. I was able to not be home but close enough to home.”
Upon arriving at Stony Brook for the 2021-22 academic year, Reinstein’s transition from East Windsor was smooth. However, with Corinne Badger locked in as the team’s starting catcher, playing time was scarce for Reinstein during her freshman season.
As a rookie, Reinstein played in just 11 games and made nine starts, during which she batted just .150 with a .527 on-base plus slugging.
“Being a catcher, there’s a lot to learn and a lot to be in charge of,” Reinstein said. “I was grateful to grab some of those starts and turn it into a positive learning experience. I really just looked at it as a year to learn instead of mourning the fact that I went from playing so much to not as much.”
Despite her few appearances behind the plate and her struggles at the dish, Reinstein still found a way to impress defensively. During her freshman year, three runners attempted to steal bases against the backstop and Reinstein successfully nabbed all three.
After making the most of limited playing time, Reinstein appeared in 22 games during her sophomore campaign, with 18 of them being starts. Though she threw out just two of 21 potential base stealers that year, Reinstein took a major step forward offensively. Reinstein raised her batting average and on-base plus slugging by 144 and 304 points, respectively, to .294 and .831. Additionally, she clobbered a pair of home runs and drove in six runs.
“It was just the confidence that I instilled in myself,” Reinstein said. “This is the game that I love and if you’re going to perform well, you have to remember why you’re playing it. The coaches really worked hard with me and my teammates have always had my back. I was able to use everything that I learned in that prior year and start feeling comfortable with it.”
With her strong sophomore season, Reinstein established herself as the team’s everyday catcher for her junior year as Badger made the transition to first base. Across her first season as a starter, Reinstein caught and started in 48 games, but her offensive production slipped. Reinstein saw her average and on-base plus slugging dip down to .233 and .577, respectively. She doubled her runs batted in (RBI) total, setting a career high with 12, but saw her home run production stay stagnant at two.
In spite of that, Reinstein was pleased with her season due to her expertise behind the plate. The catcher’s bread and butter has always been her ability to gun down baserunners and during her junior year, Reinstein firmly cemented herself as one of the Coastal Athletic Association’s (CAA) premier defensive backstops. In 2024, she caught the fourth-most base stealers (10) in the conference and produced the third-best caught stealing percentage (37.0%) among catchers with at least 20 stolen base attempts against.
“I’ve worked on my arm and transfer and they’ve definitely been my forte through the majority of my career,” Reinstein said. “Coming in with confidence in my arm has definitely helped because in my head, I’m saying, ‘Try to steal, just do it.’ It’s just something I’m so passionate about. I’m here for the team, I’m here to help the pitchers and if a runner goes, it’s my time to shine.”
Now in her final season with the Seawolves, Reinstein has finally been able to put all facets of her game together to enjoy a breakout year. From behind the dish, Reinstein’s 13 baserunners caught are the second most in the CAA, and her 42.0% caught stealing percentage is the best among catchers with at least 20 tries against them.
At the plate, Reinstein has been a force. The catcher has posted career highs in all major offensive categories, as she is batting .333 with a .904 on-base plus slugging and five long balls. Despite batting in the lower third of the batting order for most of the season, Reinstein has been one of the conference’s top run producers as well. Her 36 RBIs lead Stony Brook and also rank eighth in the CAA.
“I’ve been thinking about the bigger picture, especially with this being my final year,” Reinstein said. “It’s not just about me. It’s about the team. I’m really trying to embody that mindset of, ‘[The coaches] have put so much into me, and my teammates have that confidence in me, that I can do this.’ I’ve practiced it with [assistant coach Nicole] Bowman so many times, that this is the time to show it and just be there to have their backs.”
As her time as a Seawolf dwindles, Reinstein had nothing but wonderful things to say about Stony Brook after spending the past four years of her life there.
“My time at Stony Brook has grown me into a person that I have come to be really proud of,” Reinstein said. “The people that I have been able to meet here are something that I’m so grateful for and the bonds that I’ve made have meant so much to me. Being at Stony Brook has formed me into the best version of myself, whether that’s who I am as a human being or a player.”
Along with thinking about her impact on the field during her senior season, the soon-to-be graduate has also been focusing on what life holds after Stony Brook. Reinstein is a business administration major with a specialization in finance. Currently, she has been working on taking courses in order to become an official analyst and would ideally like to get an entry-level position before eventually earning a Master of Business Administration degree.
However, even with the sun nearly setting on her playing career, Reinstein hopes to stay in the game of softball as she pursues a career in business.
“I definitely want to get into coaching,” Reinstein said. “Every summer, I always go home and coach, and this year, I was very fortunate to work with the Long Island Rage. I think staying within coaching would be nice to do on the side. Softball has become a very large portion of my life and I would really like to give back after seeing what everyone has given to me.”
In the meantime, Reinstein has some unfinished business with the Seawolves as they gear up for the 2025 CAA Championship starting on Wednesday. With this being her last dance, Reinstein would love nothing more than to end her collegiate career with a championship ring.
“I’m feeling really confident going into this last stretch,” Reinstein said. “I think our team has grown so much during the season. I have so much faith in them and they have so much potential. I want to win it all because we can. We have a really good shot this year and everyone wants the same thing.”
Reinstein and Stony Brook kick off their tournament run by taking on Campbell — the predetermined hosts of the competition — at noon in Buies Creek, N.C.
