By Andy Loigu

You can’t win them all if you don’t win the first one.

Senior Alex Feeney pitched a three-hit shutout as Hackettstown won its 2023 baseball opener at Wallkill Valley up in ski country on April 4. Matt Rowinski drove in the only run in a 1-0 win.

The longest season-opening Tiger baseball win streak this columnist can recall came in 2011, when coach Gary Poyer’s club went 15-0 before finally losing on May 14 at Hunterdon Central in the Hunterdon/Warren/Sussex Tournament. It was a great ride by a marvelous group of ballplayers.

UPWARD CAREER MOVES

Former Tiger athletes Hali Aussems, Jake Hall and Ryan Scheifler have all made upward moves in their career paths recently.

Aussems, after working at Lafayette College for six and a half years, has gone to Northwestern University in Illinois and works with one of America’s top collegiate wrestling programs in the Big Ten Conference.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology and exercise science at Rutgers (also a Big Ten wrestling university) in 2012. In 2015 she earned a master’s degree in athletic training from East Stroudsburg University. Her duties at Northwestern include prep for games and practices, injury evaluations to determine whether prescribed treatment and rehab programs are appropriate for the injury being treated, charts, documents and all sorts of paperwork which require advanced organizational experience and skill.

Hall broke several batting records at HHS while being selected a first team All State performer in Group 2, and went on to break baseball hitting standards at County College of Morris, where he was a prolific power hitter. He also played with the Jersey Pilots in the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League, where players with pro potential get to continue playing into the summer, after their college seasons have ended, and retain their amateur standing to continue playing for their college teams.

After batting .311 in 2022 with the Golden Falcons of Felician College in the Central Atlantic Conference, he has started a professional career with the Sussex County Miners of the Frontier League, who play their home games at Skyland Park, a short ride by car from Hackettstown on Route 206. It’s nice that his family, fans and friends from Hackettstown will be able to go see him play without having to travel hundreds of miles.

Scheifler, an assistant coach with several Tiger baseball teams that won conference and sectional titles, has been named the new athletic director at Madison High School. In addition to his work at keeping the athletic programs running, he also has responsibility for curriculum leadership and support with building operations matters.

Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building.