Cormac Cassidy is all smiles as he is greeted by teammates after his first-inning, two-run homer.
By Rich Bevensee
There must be dozens of hitting drills for 11-year-olds to work on during the doldrums of winter conditioning, but Cormac Cassidy’s most important drill didn’t include a bat or a ball.
Cassidy, a young slugger with the Monmouth Mercenaries 11U club team, chose to pound away at an old tire with a sledgehammer in order to develop a more powerful stroke.
Holy cow, did the kid build some muscles.
Cassidy, who never before hit a home run, unleashed two no-doubt-about-it moonshots, the kind where the outfielders turn to admire the flight, to fuel a 13-hit attack in the Mercenaries’ 20-0, three-inning victory over the Philly Bandits in Spring Invitational pool play on Saturday at Diamond Nation in Flemington.
“Over the winter I did a lot of private training. We did a lot of weights with a sledgehammer hitting a tire,” Cassidy said. “I saw videos of people doing it and it looked cool. The first few days it was really hard but then it got easier.”
“He’s shown it in practice,” Mercenaries coach Jeremy Aviles said. “The kid hits absolute missiles.”
Cassidy knocked in five runs to pace the offensive production and was one of nine Mercenaries in a 12-man lineup to drive in a run. Ryan Hafey went 3-for-3 with two RBI, Layden Matano singled, doubled and drove in a run, and Aviles was 2-for-3 with an RBI. Gerard Alutto singled and scored three times.
The Mercenaries (1-1), whose offensive explosion was their response to a tough 13-12 loss to Cranford Blue earlier in the day, conclude pool play on Sunday against Guest Player Connect (1-1).
Another standout for the Mercenaries was right-hander Dom DePaolo, who allowed one hit and no walks with three strikeouts over two shutout innings. Jordan Aviles pitched a perfect third inning in relief to cap the combined one-hitter.
“Dom is a dude,” Mercenaries coach Jeremy Aviles said. “He is an absolute stud. He controlled the tempo, threw strikes. Can’t ask anything more.”
“I was throwing strikes, I got outs, I gave up only one hit,” DePaolo said. “Coach is confident in me because I pitch really good and they pitch me when they really need me.”
Richie Martinez slides home for the Mercenaries during his team’s eight-run first inning.
The DePaolo-Aviles combo was so effective that two batters in the Bandits’ lineup did not get an at bat in the mercy rule contest.
The result was quite a reversal from the Mercenaries’ previous game, in which Cranford Blue came from behind to eke out a late one-run win.
Aviles did not deliver a fence-rattling, post-game speech after the loss. Way too early in the season for that, he said.
“He told us one game doesn’t matter,” DePaolo said. “Leave what was in the past and focus in the now, moment.”
“This group showed me resiliency,” Aviles said. “They don’t give up. It’s a fun group to coach. Each one hypes up the others. There’s never an issue with this group. They needed that loss to regroup. A bad day, bad plays can turn into a bad game. Game 2 was a lot more fun, a lot cleaner.”