The Carlmont varsity baseball team incredible season. Much of this success can be accredited to newcomer and star pitcher Ryan Hogan.
Hogan started playing baseball at the young age of four and was immediately recognized for his natural talent. He went on to become one of the top pitchers in little league. However, once he entered into the more competitive world of high school baseball, he realized that talent alone would not get him far.
Hogan said, “Playing against top teams in the nation really forces me to work all the more harder. CCS has a lot of very talented teams. It’s a lot more competitive than playing in most leagues.’
Hogan also played a crucial part on the U-18 Colt All Star team the last two summers when they traveled to Lafayette, Indiana for the Colt World Championships. In one of the biggest and most talented youth baseball competitions in the world, Hogan as a starting pitcher helped his team defeat Puerto Rico in the finals both years to take home the world championship.
After transferring to Carlmont midway through his junior year, Hogan was challenged to both adapt to a new team with a very different style of play than St. Francis. Along with that, due to transfer rules, he was only allowed to practice with the team and not allowed to play in any games.
At the beginning of the season, Hogan proved his importance in a 9-2 win over Lynbrook. In six innings, he allowed just one earned run off of three hits.
In an early season game, Hogan led the scots to an 8-1 win over the Menlo-Atherton Bears, only allowing four singles over six innings. The Scots improved to a 4-0 PAL record and 12-2 overall record.
Leading into the final week of the regular season, the Scots were in a three way tie for first place in PAL’s with the Burlingame Panthers and the Terra Nova Tigers. Each team had a record of seven wins and four losses. The Scots dominated their last two games to take first place over Burlingame and Terra Nova.
This year, Hogan is back and ready to prove himself in his final year of high school baseball. The Scots qualified as the top PAL seed in the CCS championships, where one game can be the difference between staying and going home.
Hogan’s teammate Marcus Fukuhara said “Hogan is definitely one of the hardest working players on our team, along with that he is really talented. Once he gets in the zone he is a force to be reckoned with. He’s definitely a great guy to be on our pitching staff, especially at CCS since he has already played other teams in the WCAL and knows a lot of their heavy hitters.’
Although the scots fell to Homestead High School, in part to an uncharacteristic start from Hogan in the first round of CCS, Hogan and the rest of the team still have a fantastic season to look back on.