In perhaps the rarest of all of the Hudson Reporter All-Area teams ever honored, the 2011 All-Area baseball team has only one of the 22 honorees back from last year’s team.
Only Mike Santana of Bayonne is a repeat member of the All-Area squad. The other 21 are complete newcomers. It’s a feat that had never before happened in the nearly two decades of honoring the elite local athletes in football, soccer, boys’ and girls’ basketball, baseball, and softball.
It’s an impressive turnover in a highly competitive sport, one that was definitely unique locally this year by never before seen parity. Every team seemed to manage to knock off the other this season and it was highlighted by the county champion, Hoboken, coming from a seventh-seed in the tournament to win the title.
The Red Wings placed three players on the All-Area team, including two of the three big awards.
There were also three players each from Weehawken and North Bergen and two from several other schools. It was a very diverse All-Area squad.
The Hudson Reporter Player of the Year honor goes to North Bergen shortstop Kevin Alonso, who stepped in for last year’s Player of the Year, former Bruin shortstop Anel Sotolongo. Alonso emerged as the Bruins’ leader all season and delivered his fair share of key hits and clutch defensive plays.
The Hudson Reporter Pitcher of the Year and Most Valuable Player is one and the same, none other than Hoboken pitching ace Kenny Roder. The junior left-hander had a season to remember, posting a 10-1 record with a miniscule ERA of under 1.30 and striking out 125 batters, second in the history of the school. More incredibly, Roder walked only eight batters all season long, showing control never before seen in Hudson County. When Roder wasn’t pitching, he was a standout outfielder, especially defensively, but he also batted .460.
Roder definitely placed himself among the all-time Hoboken greats with his stellar season.
The Hudson Reporter Coach of the Year is a no-brainer. Buddy Matthews, battling a serious hip injury all season long, guided the Hoboken Red Wings in his final season after 26 years. He took the seventh-seed all the way to the Hudson County title, winning his eighth county title and sending him off into retirement the right way.
While the baseball team featured a team almost entirely made of first-time honorees, the Hudson Reporter All-Area softball team is totally different.
Eight members of the 2011 All-Area squad are repeat honorees.
North Bergen standouts Carla Arismendi and Jazmin Palma earned All-Area honors for the fourth straight season. Teammate Ashley Heredia made the squad for her third straight season and fellow Bruin Tiffany Garzon made it for the third time, earning All-Area in 2008, 2010 and this year.
Secaucus’ Andrea Innis and Shannon Waters also both earned All-Area for a third straight year, as did Union City’s Angelique Nieves, who earned honors this year after playing the last two years for High Tech. Nieves was named as the Player of the Year. Teammate Jovanique Meneses, who played last year with Nieves at High Tech and moved over to Union City, also earned honors for the second straight year.
The other repeat honoree is Natalia Estremera of McNair Academic, who earned honors for the second straight season.
Arismendi, who was the Player of the Year last year, earns Pitcher of the Year and Most Valuable Player honors this season. A member of the Puerto Rican National junior team, Arismendi had a brilliant four-year career for the Bruins and will head to NCAA Division I softball next year at Southern University. Nieves will also go Division I, playing softball at Iona.
The Hudson Reporter Softball Coach of the Year for 2011 is Mike Palughi of Ferris, who turned the Ferris program around in his second season and actually led the Bulldogs to the Hudson County Tournament semifinals for the very first time. – Jim Hague
Jim Hague can be reached at OGSMAR@aol.com.