Is Hendricken Baseball the favorite?
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tom Verdi, Jeff Roy and Billy Walker are three reasons why Bishop Hendricken High’s baseball Hawks may repeat as Division I state champions.
Verdi, for example, is 6-2, 195 senior shortstop who last year landed second team All-State honors.
“He’s an outstanding defensive shortstop,” Ed Holloway, the Hawks’ veteran and highly-successful head coach, says. “He makes all the plays…routine and spectacular. It got to the point last year that I hoped every ball was hit to him.” Verdi is also a solid hitter. He batted .390 last spring.
Hawks
Adds Holloway of the three-year starter, who played the outfield as a sophomore but moved to short last year: “I think he’s going to have a big year offensively.”
Verdi is also an outstanding leader and a Hawks’ captain. He has accepted a scholarship to attend the University of Connecticut.
Roy is a 5-10, 175-pound senior who last year played a right field. He’ll patrol center field this spring. “Jeff is an outstanding defensive outfielder,” Holloway noted. “He has a real good strong arm.”
Roy was a first team All-State selection last year as a junior and batted a robust .483.
“He has outstanding speed and steals a lot of bases,” the head Hawks said. “Jeff puts lots of pressure on the other team’s defense.”
Like Verdi, Roy is also a captain.
His leadership abilities and talent are perhaps why former Hendricken star and current URI Head Coach Jim Foster, who played professional baseball for 10 years, offered Roy a baseball scholarship to URI.
Walker (5-11, 185) is a unique athlete who last year was a starting catcher as a freshman. He shared the duty with now former Hawk Joe Lopes. Holloway says Walker is a good hitter and outstanding player who last year batted .370.
“He has tremendous instincts,” Holloway says of Walker. “He sees the game before it happens. He’s a very heady player who is like having a coach on the field. He knows how to direct out pitchers…he reminds me of (the late Yankee great) Thurmond Munson.
Comments:
Don Botts
2:17pm on Thursday, April 29, 2010
Thurman Munson
Dan O'Rourke
3:55pm on Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Good article regarding a great baseball program......It's great to see Pete Fontaine back on the local sports scene....He has more institutional knowledge of high school athletics than most writer past and present will ever have.....Your other sports writers are top notch also on the local scene.
Best of luck!