When the 2017 Hudson Reporter All-Area Baseball Team was announced last week, there was one glaring omission.
Union City talented junior third baseman Roylin Almonte should have been among those listed, considering that Almonte batted a robust .506 with three homers and 35 RBI.
“For a good portion of the season, he was our only cog to the offense,” said Union City head coach Chipper Benway. “We graduated 13 seniors from last year’s team and we really didn’t have anyone stepping up.”
Benway didn’t know whether Almonte would be part of the team this year.
“After his freshman year, he went back to the Dominican Republic to play baseball there,” Benway said. “It was a big blow to us.”
“I wanted to go there and get a chance to play,” Almonte said through an interpreter. “But because my father had a chance to come back, I wanted to get the chance to come back to learn to speak English. I wasn’t worried whether I would fit in again, because I kept in touch with a lot of my teammates.”
So Almonte returned this year to Union City and the Soaring Eagles.
“He was a quiet kid who didn’t say much,” Benway said. “But he loves to play the game and wants to play all the time. I was certainly happy to have him back.”
The rest is history.
“I felt like I had to prove myself,” Almonte said. “I wasn’t worried about doing well. I just tried my hardest and played hard. I knew I could do it.”
Now Almonte will remain in the United States and will remain a prominent member of the Soaring Eagles, as well as one of the top players to watch in Hudson County in 2018.
“He’s projected to be our shortstop next season,” said Benway, whose team had an uncharacteristic 11-15 record in 2017. “He came here and just kept hitting and hitting. At one point, it looked like all he hit were extra base hits.”
Almonte had eight doubles and eight triples to go along with his three homers.
“The kid can flat out swing the bat,” Benway said. “If I had one teammate [at Hoboken High] that he reminds me of, I would have to say Mike Purvis [an All-Area performer during his days during the early 1990s]. It’s hard to imagine he could improve on a .506 season. I just hope he can come back and give us better.”
Almonte is spending the summer months playing summer baseball.
“I just love playing baseball,” Almonte said. “I’ve been playing all my life.”
The Hudson Reporter regrets making such an omission to the original All-Area team published last week….
Speaking of summer baseball, the Hudson Reporter will begin its weekly summer feature next week.
EXTRA INNINGS focuses on the best stories that come from local baseball and softball leagues throughout the area, from Little League action through travel leagues.
If you have any noteworthy information to contribute to the EXTRA INNINGS, feel free to contact Jim Hague by phone at (201) 303-5792 or via e-mail at OGSMAR@aol.com.
The e-mail would be the best way of getting in touch.
Please include a telephone contact name and number, in order to secure further information for a possible story. Also, if you have a picture to be used with the story, that would be a great help….
The Hudson County Track Coaches Association held its recent awards dinner and there were three athletes who earned First Team selection in more than one event.
Other than Athlete of the Year Malia Gray of St. Dominic, Nyoki Jones of Snyder had a brilliant career, capped by First Team in the 400-meter dash, the 800-meter dash and the 400-meter intermediate hurdles.
Jones will go down as one of the best all-around athletes in Snyder and Hudson County history. She’s off to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to compete in track and field. She helped the Tigers win the indoor county championship, the first one in ages…
On the boys’ side, Haig Rickerby of McNair Academic earned First Team in the 400-meter dash, the 800-meter run and the triple jump. Rickerby, headed to Boston University on a scholarship, also earns plaudits as being one of the best products in the history of McNair Academic athletics.
Masaki Aerts of St. Peter’s Prep, headed to Dartmouth to play football, earned First Team honors in the 100 and 200-meter dashes…
Finally, a positive update on the medical front: former Marist and St. Aloysius head boys’ basketball coach Tony Romano is recovering in a New York hospital after collapsing at a basketball camp last week. It was touch-and-go with the lovable Romano, but he seems to have made a step in the right direction and on the road to recovery…
And as for former Hudson Dispatch and Jersey Journal sports columnist and long-time North Bergen teacher and coach Mike Spina, we’re pleased to report that Spina is recovering nicely after a lengthy hospital and rehab stay. Spina received a visit last week from yours truly as well as recently retired North Bergen softball coach Tom Eagleson and his dutiful assistant George Clough and after a series of stories and laughs, Spina reported that he’s expected to be released from the rehab facility July 15 and will then be able to see his newborn grandson, born in April…–Jim Hague
Jim Hague can be reached at OGSMAR@aol.com.
