Matt Hogan
Hills East Looks To Reach Playoffs In 2024
by Mike Merolle (Special thanks to Metamorphosis Landscape Design for sponsoring this year’s season preview series.) Hills East plans for a better year in 2024 after finishing 6-12 last season and missing out on the playoffs. The Thunderbirds finished 10-10 in the season prior. Head coach Tim Belz intends to turn things around in his 16th year managing Hills East. “Our league is very good. Every week is going to be a tough matchup for us. We’re going to have to come out and play our best baseball,” said Belz in an interview with Axcess Baseball. Belz has been dealt tough cards. Hills East’s varsity squad has the “lightest number” of varsity players this year than he’s ever had. This makes team depth one of Belz’s concerns coming into the season. He plans to rely on his team leaders...
Tim Belz Confident Team Chemistry Will Pay Off for Hills East
Reis Henderson wins it for Hills East with a walk-off single to score Nick Gavilla ! pic.twitter.com/yyZVfPV9MN — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) March 29, 2019 by Ben Diamond After losing last season, Hills East had a big senior class graduate. But, Head Baseball Coach at Hills East, Tim Belz, believes that the core of his team is still intact. Led by junior shortstop Nick Farnacci, who has been with the team since freshman year. Senior catcher Aiden Limerick, who he expects big things from this coming season, and senior RHP Kyle Cavataio. Belz said that Cavataio would’ve been a big part of his pitching staff had the season not been cancelled last year. Belz feels as though the hole left by the departing senior class isn’t as big as other schools. Uncommitted Kyle Cavataio (Hills Eas...
Re-Visiting The 2016 Top Prospects on LI List
It’s been five years since I really started following high school baseball here on Long Island. Back during the 2016, I tried to really immerse myself in the game and I was covering games 5 days per week – while bartending at Lombardi’s on the Bay on the weekend – so I did miss out on some action at times. But through conversations with high school and travel ball coaches, I attempted to compile a list of the Top 10 prospects on Long Island. This was not meant to be a prediction of who would have the longest and most successful career, but in that snapshot in time I wanted to gage who had the highest ceiling as a prospect. Like anything else in media, it got some attention from people that enjoyed it while others scoffed at it. I can laugh now, because I really had ...
OTD: Recap of 2018 Award Banquet
Matt Hogan on winning the coveted Carl Yastrzemski Award given to Suffolk County’s Top Player pic.twitter.com/CqVxgEmklI — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) June 14, 2018 The annual Suffolk County All-Star Banquet at Villa Lombardi’s in Holbrook is a bittersweet moment that celebrates the best that Suffolk County baseball has to offer but also represents the official conclusion of the spring baseball season. Tonight’s gathering brought together over 800 guests from the baseball community, honoring several awards from All-League to All-County, League MVPs, three Courage Awards, two Umpires of the Year and the “Big 3” of Silver Slugger, Paul Gibson Award (top pitcher) and Carl Yastrzemski Award (top hitter). Silver Slugger Award Tim McHugh, Commack The TCU-commit smacked five HR and...
OTD: Pat-Med Pulls Off Huge Upset of No. 3 Hills East, Advance to Semis
Final: Pat-Med 4, Hills East 3 WP: Angelo Sciandra No. 3 Hills East is eliminated pic.twitter.com/m2HFo2zlbD — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 19, 2017 To say that Pat-Med came in with the chips stacked against them would be an understatement. As the No. 14 seed against No. 3 seed Hills East, they would have to pull off all their victories on the road. They put a sophomore, Randall Alejo, up against Vanderbilt-commit Matt Hogan and they had a number of sophomores playing prominent roles in the game. None of that mattered, as they pulled off the upset with a 4-3 victory to advance to the Class AA semifinals against Commack beginning on Monday. “We wanted to kind of represent our league, and we did a nice job, we’ve had great at bats for the past few weeks,” said Coach Anthony Frasc...
Transcript of IG Live With Matt Hogan
Matt Hogan 1st 2 Run HR Today @MattHogan10 @PBRNewYork @axcessbaseball pic.twitter.com/GxwebAPrJl — Rich Hogan (@RichHogan4) April 21, 2018 Editor’s Note: Matt is a 2018 graduate of Half Hollow Hills East. He was a five-year varsity player. He returned from a serious back injury that occurred during his junior year and bounced back in a big way by winning the 2018 Carl Yastrzemski Award – given annually to the top player in Suffolk County. From there, he went on to attend Vanderbilt University. All they did was defeat the University of Michigan in the College World Series, which was Coach Tim Corbin’s second of the decade. He came on Instagram live to talk about a variety of topics. It has been shortened for brevity. What separates Coach Tim Corbin from every other colleg...
OTD: Matt Hogan Fires No-Hitter Against Smithtown West
Matt Hogan on his no-hitter against Smithtown West pic.twitter.com/FTpv502c4o — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 13, 2018 by Frank Farnacci Vanderbilt-commit Matt Hogan threw a no-hitter today, leading his Half Hollow Hills East Thunderbirds to a 5-0 win over Smithtown West Bulls. “I was feeling pretty good, but honestly it was just the defense behind me today. Everyone was making plays. There were no errors in the field,” Hogan said. His humility was admirable considering he struck out eleven with a powerful fast ball and a biting curve ball. “I’ve seen Matt pitch now for three, four years at the varsity level”, said Hills East Manager Tim Belz. “Today he took a little bit off, pounded the zone, got ahead. It’s one of the best pitching performances I’ve seen from him in ...
Hills East Poised For Bounceback Year
by Tony Genualdo Last season for Hills East was full of ups-and-downs. The team got some early success going, including four walk-off victories. But in the end, they dropped 5 out of their last 6 games and were unable to make a playoff push. Nine seniors left the team following the season, including two-time All-League player Nick Gavilla (now at Adelphi University) and All-County player John Son (now at Utica College). Coach Tim Belz is fortunate to have a deep team this year to cushion the loss of them. “We are deep at every position this year,” Belz said. “So, filling the spots will be easy and there are open positional battles for every spot this year.” He’s not wrong with the amount of talent on the team. Ten seniors return from last year. Among those players are Andrew Ferber and Jas...
Hills East Ready to Begin New Era
The Hills East Thunderbirds know what it’s like to have success in their league. After all, they have made the playoffs the last four years in a row. While that is an accomplishment in its own right, the Thunderbirds are looking to advance further in the playoffs this year. To do so, they’re going to have to replace a few big names from last years roster. Starting with Matt Hogan (now at Vanderbilt), who won the Carl Yastrzemski award, which goes to the top player in Suffolk County. Also gone from the team is first baseman, Joe Litchhult (now at Cortland). The good news for the Thunderbirds is that they return plenty of players to this year’s team. Fourteen to be exact, including nine seniors. That kind of experience could be helpful for a team looking to make a deeper run in the playoffs....
17 Miles, Two Counties Apart, One Passion: Baseball
by Matt Dzenawager The Carl Yastrzemski Award, given to the best player in Suffolk County, and the Diamond Award, given to the best positional player in Nassau County, are two of the most prestigious honors for Long Island High School baseball players. This year the Carl Yastrzemski Award was earned by Matt Hogan of Half Hollow Hills East High School and the Diamond Award was earned by Anthony D’Onofrio of Wantagh High School. Despite living in different counties, the game of baseball has brought Hogan and D’Onofrio together. The two have played travel ball together since they were 11 for the Long Island Titans organization and have forged a long-lasting, great friendship. “Everyday, every weekend we’ve had games and stuff,” Hogan said “baseball is more of a brotherhood bond.” Both D’Onofr...
Recap of 2018 All-Star Banquet
Matt Hogan on winning the coveted Carl Yastrzemski Award given to Suffolk County’s Top Player pic.twitter.com/CqVxgEmklI — Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) June 14, 2018 The annual Suffolk County All-Star Banquet at Villa Lombardi’s in Holbrook is a bittersweet moment that celebrates the best that Suffolk County baseball has to offer but also represents the official conclusion of the spring baseball season. Tonight’s gathering brought together over 800 guests from the baseball community, honoring several awards from All-League to All-County, League MVPs, three Courage Awards, two Umpires of the Year and the “Big 3” of Silver Slugger, Paul Gibson Award (top pitcher) and Carl Yastrzemski Award (top hitter). Silver Slugger Award Tim McHugh, Commack The TCU-co...
Hills East Blanks Riverhead Behind Matt Hogan
by Frank Farnacci Vanderbilt-commit Matt Hogan led Half Hollow Hills East over Riverhead, 7-0, this afternoon with a dominating pitching performance. Hogan threw six innings of shutout ball striking out eleven while surrendering only three hits. “Another great effort from Matt today”, said Hills East Manager Tim Belz. “He had good command of his off speed and fastball. He got ahead. We made a couple of errors that could have resulted in runs, but he settled down and got us out of it each time”. Hills East set the pace with single runs in the second and third innings. In the second, John Son reached and advanced to second on an error. He scored on Vin Muraco’s single to left. In the third, Reis Henderson led off with a walk, stole second and advanced the third on Matt Hogan’s sac fly ...
