Moose leads SCA’s baseball honorees
Published 9:57 pm Friday, May 22, 2015
Junior Shawn Moose headlined the Suffolk Christian Academy baseball team’s 2015 conference honorees by repeating as the Hampton Roads Athletic Conference Player of the Year.
He was joined on the All-HRAC first team by sophomores Joel Blasiole and Richie Hall.
Reacting to Moose’s top accolade, Knights coach Tommy Moose said he was “honored, as his dad, to see how the Lord’s blessed him in his life.”
It has been impossible to consider Suffolk Christian Academy’s success on the diamond in the last three years without also thinking of Shawn Moose.
As a freshman in 2013, he made the all-conference first team and was named the conference tournament MVP after helping the Knights win the championship.
Last year, in the course of helping SCA repeat as conference tournament champs, he also made the all-conference first team and won the HRAC Player of the Year award, though it was then called the conference MVP award.
When he received those two honors again this year, “I thought it was well-deserved,” Tommy Moose said. “He had the highest stats, clearly, of anybody in the league, but it doesn’t always work out how you think it will.”
And his contributions again led to a conference tournament title for the Knights.
Against conference opponents this season, Moose led his team with a .667 batting average, a 1.333 slugging percentage, a .719 on-base percentage, 18 hits, 22 runs scored, six doubles, three triples and two home runs in 27 at-bats. He also had 11 runs batted in.
He spent 10 innings on the mound against conference opponents, facing 34 batters. He threw 24 strikeouts, allowed only 30 hits, his opponents’ batting average against him was .088 and he had an earned run average of 0.00.
He spent most of his time on defense at shortstop where his father noted he shined due to his athleticism, quickness and arm strength.
Joel Blasiole helped Suffolk Christian to victory at the plate as a batter and behind the plate as a catcher.
“Joel’s a real team leader,” coach Moose said.
While Shawn Moose is a quiet leader, Blasiole is of the more vocal, take-charge variety, the coach said.
Strengthening Blasiole’s leadership was his valuable contribution as a catcher. Coach Moose needed a solid replacement at the position that featured another all-conference first team honoree last year — the now-graduated Jared Lauver.
Moose said while Blasiole struggled early on this season, he worked hard to improve, including pursuing private catching instruction.
Eventually, he began to assert himself as a menace to opposing offenses. During one of the meetings this season between the Knights and Summit Christian Academy, “their best base runners, he’s throwing them out,” Moose said.
Offensively, Blasiole was strong, leading his team in RBIs against conference opponents with 19.
In 24 at-bats, he had a .458 batting average, a .625 slugging percentage, a .576 on-base percentage, 11 hits, 11 runs scored and four doubles.
Blasiole’s first team honor is the first conference accolade of his career.
The same is true for Richie Hall.
“Richie played a really good third base for us this year,” Moose said, noting he and his staff had not been sure who was going to fill that position coming into the season.
At the plate, Hall “drove in a lot of runs late in the year for us,” Moose said, also noting a few of his hits were particularly clutch.
In 20 at-bats against conference opponents, Hall had a .400 batting average, eight hits, 12 RBIs and seven runs scored.