Young Hurd squad battling in legion play

Team off to 2-3 start after loss to Gershkoff

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For several years in a row, the Hurd Auto Mall/Post 88 American Legion baseball team has fielded veteran clubs, full of college freshmen and veteran high-school players.

That changes this year, but the Johnston-based team is still holding its own on the summer circuit. Playing without a single post-grad player and with several high-school underclassmen, the Hurd squad is off to a 2-3 start this season.

“We’re young and we’re trying to build for the future,” said coach Jerry Coro. “We’re 2-3 right now. We kind of have a young team, but we’ll keep fighting.”

Hurd was a playoff team last season, finishing its run at the state’s double-elimination final eight. Johnston High standouts Joe Bongiovanni, Zach Coro, Ryan McKeon and Steve Pennacchia are back from that team, but they’re the only ones.

The rest of the roster features a few more Panthers, plus players from La Salle and a few from surrounding areas like Scituate and North Providence.

Hurd isn’t deep and will have to jell as the season goes on, but the start has been decent. Hurd opened with a 5-4 win over South Kingstown Post 39 on June 15 and nearly made it two in a row before giving up a five-run lead against the same team two days later and falling 6-5. Hurd also split with West Warwick Post Two, falling 4-1 last Wednesday but rebounding to win 4-0 on Thursday.

“I knew we were young so it might be a tough season,” Coro said. “But the first four games, we came out pretty well. We had a five run lead in our second game and we ended up losing 6-5. The first West Warwick game, the pitching kind of fell behind and never got back into it. We came back the next time and shut them out.”

On Tuesday, Hurd opened a two-game set with Cranston’s Gershkoff Auto Body/Auburn Post 20 and fell behind 7-0. Gerhskoff lefty Kemi Idowu dominated in the early going, but Hurd battled against the bullpen, scoring four runs in the sixth to make things interesting. Jake Coro singled, McKeon walked and Nick Raposo walked to load the bases. Bongiovanni then smashed a grand slam over the fence in right field to make it 7-4.

“We fell behind 7-0 but Joe B had a nice grand slam,” Jerry Coro said. “The pitching just wasn’t there tonight.”

Hurd still trailed by just three in its last at-bat but couldn’t get another rally going and fell 7-4.

Hurd will play Gershkoff again on Friday, at Cranston Stadium at 8 p.m., and is hoping for a turnaround similar to the one it had in the West Warwick series.

“We’ve got to hit and we can’t get down early in the game,” Coro said. “I’m happy to see we came back today. We didn’t quit. That’s something to build on for Friday.”

In addition to the returning players, the Hurd roster features Johnston High’s Raposo, Jake Coro, and Jake Podmaska. From La Salle, Hurd has Frank Caprio, Nick Soares and Jordan Gillheeney. North Providence’s David Sciarra and Devin Benson and Scituate’s Scott Lynch are also on the squad, along with Smithfield native Greg Pezza, a hockey standout who attends Rectory School in Connecticut.

The 2-3 record has Hurd in ninth-place in the 12-team league. The top eight teams make the playoffs.

“We’ll be alright,” Coro said. “It’s a long season. We battled back tonight and we’ll battle Friday night.”

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