St Aidan’s Middle School Baseball opens the 2019 Spring Season

The Island Now

Under a clear blue sky and a spring-like temperature, the St. Aidan’s Middle School Baseball team opened their 2019 Spring season on Thursday, April 4 at the Town of North Hempstead’s Sen. Michael J. Tully Park against Our Lady of Peace Middle School.

Behind the dominant pitching performance of Michael D’Angelo, the Stallions of St Aidan’s won their opening games by a score of 14-2. D’Angelo struck out 9, allowing no runs and only one hit over 5.1 innings. Joe Panero came on in relief and struck out four batters, allowing no hits in 1.2 innings.

The Stallions opened the scoring in the first inning when lead-off hitter Sean Lanigan drew a walk, eventually reaching third on a stolen base. Mike D’Angelo drove him in with a sharp grounder to the left side. The Stallions then scattered nine hits over six innings. Thomas Nutley, Sean Lanigan, Joe Panero, Eddie Olsen, Mike D’Angelo (two hits), James Rosselon, Jake Grimm, Jon Anthony Panero all contributed to the offensive explosion. The Stallions scored at least one run in every inning they batted. Mike D’Angelo commented on his pitching: “It was my first game on a 90-foot baseball field but I felt great and had good command of my pitches and threw strikes”.

On defense, Matthew Forte earned the game’s Gold Glove when in the fourth inning he was responsible for all three outs in the field, highlighted with a sharp grab of a hard line-drive ball. Nikita Mullen and Jack Willoughby also contributed with fine defensive plays.

Field manager Kenny Solosky was very pleased with the Stallions efforts: “I felt we played well in all aspects of the game – pitching, fielding and hitting. It was a very balanced line-up with all players contributing. I was very happy to see us core at least one run in every inning.”

Third Base coach Patrick Solosky was particularly pleased with the running game and the fielding. “We were aggressive on the base paths and that directly led to a few runs. We kept the pressure on Our Lady of Peace team forcing them to make mistakes and we capitalized. We also played an almost flawless game in the field, making the plays when we had to stop any OLP momentum”.

The St. Aidan’s Stallions play in the Catholic Middle School Spirit League and play against the middle schools of Kellenberg, St. Agnes, OLP, St. Mary’s, St. Christopher and St. Raymond’s. The team is made of up of 6th, 7th and 8th grade boys from St. Aidan’s Middle School.

The 2019 St Aidan’s Middle School team plays under General Manager Ken Solosky and field managers Kenny Solosky and Patrick Solosky and consists of the following players: Thomas Nutley, Jon Anthony Panero, Michael D’Angelo, Jake Grimm, Joe Panero, James Rosellon, Jack Willoughby, Eddie Olsen, Christian Murphy, CJ Galanga, Matthew Forte, Nikita Mullen, Sean Lanigan, Lucas Abrusci, Justin Meskill, Balian Fagan and Andrew Marotta.

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