A lot of kids try a variety of sports when they’re growing up before deciding on the one that fits them best.
Most of them don’t choose the two that Shepard baseball’s David Nelligan did,
Nelligan is having a breakout season in his second year on varsity. And he gives some credit for his success to another sport he used to do: taekwondo.
How did that help?
“Flexibility,” Nelligan said after setting a program record with five hits in an 11-3 win over Kennedy on April 19. “Got a lot faster with my range at shortstop, faster on the bases.”
He started competing in martial arts when he was 12 and did it for about four years, becoming good enough to finish third in a major tournament in Las Vegas.
But he had only so much time to devote to sports, and he stopped doing taekwondo to focus on baseball. It looks like a good move.
Nelligan had a solid sophomore year for the Astros. He hit .284 with 12 RBIs and 19 stolen bases while also going 1-3 with two saves, a 3.44 ERA and 30 strikeouts for a team that finished 11-21.
This year is looking better for him and Shapard, which was 7-6-2 after the win over Kennedy.
Nelligan had a day to remember. He hit safely in every at-bat, driving in eight runs. He tripled in the first inning, doubled in the second, singled in the fourth and fifth, and legged out a home run in the seventh. The last hit went deep to left at Kennedy’s home field at Wentworth Park, which does not have an outfield fence.
Had he ever had a game like that?
“Probably when I was 11 or 12,” Nelligan said. “Maybe 14. … Last year in the summer for travel (ball), I had a couple four-hit games.”
In any case, Nelligan has been a force for the Astros this spring.
“David’s the glue to our team,” Shepard coach Frank DiFoggio said. “He’s our shortstop, he’s one of our better pitchers, he’s our (No.) 3 hitter.
“And one thing I love about him is that he wants to be coached. We have been kind of struggling with the bats lately and we have talked about our right-field approach — we need to hit the ball right to left and stop trying to pull everything all the time. And he’s one of the guys that’s showing the way. Most of his hits today were to right field.”
Part of it is being more at ease in his second season on varsity.
“More relaxed,” Nelligan said. “When I’m up at the plate, I always think I’m gonna get a hit.”
It wasn’t always like that last season.
“The first maybe eight to 10 games, I was anxious,” he said. “But then toward the middle of the season and at the end, I started picking it up.”
Also putting up big numbers against Kennedy were junior DH Colton Davis (2-for-4, three RBIs) and junior catcher Billy Massey (1-for-3, walk, hit by pitch, three runs). Junior Zach Cosme pitched five innings for the win, allowing four hits and striking out six.
“We’re slowly starting to get back to the teams we’ve always put out,” DiFoggio said, “We had a little dip the last few years … our boys were trying real hard and stuff like that. … (But) we got in a little funk the last couple years where we weren’t winning baseball games and we’re slowly starting to climb out of that. Our best baseball is definitely in front of us.”
Junior Alec Mendoza, a transfer from Brother Rice, went 3-for-4 with a run for Kennedy (9-7).
The Crusaders started 6-0 in Public League American South action and are on track to move up to the top-tier Jackie Robinson South if they win the conference.
But coach Mario Silva is setting the bar higher.
“I’m hoping for a little bit more from these guys,” he said. “We’ve got good talent. Just haven’t been able to put it together against quality competition. We expect to win the conference, but we want to do more past the conference.
“It’s meaningless if we get to the city playoffs or regionals and we don’t even … win a game.”