It seems every year the narrative is that Shoreham-Wading River ‘lose a lot of arms’ from the previous year. Once the season begins, they find another power pitcher that blows away the competition. Last year it was Gabe Romano who emerged to become a front line starter and this year it is Aidan Crowley.
The 6’2 uncommitted right-handed pitcher has began 2019 with back-to-back no-hitters against Eastport-South Manor and John Glenn with a total of 22 strikeouts.
“My goal going into every outing is to not give up any hits,” said Crowley, the younger brother of Jack who graduated in 2017. Last season, he performed well on varsity as a sophomore, he went 3-1 with an ERA in the 3s. That performance is good, but at Shoreham-Wading River where record-breaking numbers are the norm, it hardly stood out.
Since that time, he has made it his mission to hit 90 MPH and become an All-County pitcher and he is on the right track. After two dominant starts, a 0.00 ERA and 87 MPH heater, he is well on his way.
Going into the first outing against the team that reached the Suffolk AA Finals, you’d think there was a little bit of nerves for the junior.
“Not really,” he said discussing whether he had any jitters before the game. “We had scrimmaged them and lost so I knew they were a pretty good team,” he said. Once he started mowing down hitters, he knew he had the possibility for a special outing.
“Everything was working and after each inning I’d walk back to the dugout and think ‘okay good inning–no hits,” he said.
In the fifth inning he started to think that he had a good chance to “finish the game without allowing a hit” since there was no hard hit balls to that point. In the seventh inning, following a walk there was a hard-hit line drive to the second baseman Nick Bettenhauser, but he caught it and fired to first to complete the double play.
As we know, it does require some luck to fire a no-hitter. He took matters into his own hands for the final batter–recording his eighth strikeout.
Going into his second outing, he knew the expectations were high.
“As soon as I got out there I said to myself ‘it’s got to be at least as good as last time. Anything less would be a disappointment.”
Problem was, he didn’t feel right during warmups.
“I didn’t really have good stuff and I said to my catcher, Aidan Hutchins, ‘I don’t know, I don’t really have it today,” he said. That is not as common as one would think during no-hitters, as pitchers tend to ‘find it’ once the adrenaline hits and they get onto the real mound.
It turns out he couldn’t have had better stuff. Once again everything was working for him and he struck out the side a couple times without allowing a hit.
This time there was nary a scare. “There wasn’t really any hard hit balls to the outfield, maybe one ground ball double play,” he said.
He also nearly doubled his strikeout total from eight to 14.
Now coming off back-to-back no-hitters, the expectations are once again high and all eyes will be on him to see if he can complete what very few high school pitchers have; notably Nick Fanti during the 2015 season for Hauppauge when Aidan was 13.
He names Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander and Josh Hader as is favorite pitchers in the MLB and his grandpa as his biggest role model.
“Everyone likes him, I don’t know anyone that doesn’t like him and he’s really funny,” he said.
As far as college, he’s been contacted by some of the local Division-Is and plans to take his time with his decision as to attend the best academic school possible.
Before that, there’s business to take care of on the field and goals to accomplishment.
“We want to win states.”
