Baseball
Favorite athlete: Derek Jeter
Favorite team: Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning districts when I was 12.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: When swarm of bees attacked my friend during a game.
Music on mobile device: Rap/Hip-Hop
Future plans: Good paying job
Motto: “Don’t trust anyone.”
One goal before turning 30: Buy my parents whatever they want.
One thing people don’t know about me: My family and friends are my everything.
By Ed Morrone
To understand how the dominance of the 2018 Bensalem baseball team — especially its pitching staff — coalesced, you have to trace things all the way back to Little League, according to one of its lights-out starters, senior Stephen Aldrich.
Aldrich, fellow senior Nick Fossile and juniors Nick Dean and Dominic Grady, came up through the ranks together as kids, and now they all are doing special things with their pitching arms for the best Owls baseball season in recent memory. After Saturday’s 6-2 win over Lincoln, Bensalem moved to 10-1 overall on the season, including a first-place 7-1 mark in the SOL National Conference. The Owls’ highly-regarded pitching staff, with most of the heavy lifting being done by Division-I recruits Aldrich and Dean, has allowed a grand total of 12 runs in the team’s 11 games. Only five of those runs were earned, giving Bensalem’s staff an eye-popping 0.34 earned run average, an unprecedented number at the high school level — or at any level, for that matter. The quartet has compiled 90 strikeouts to go along with just 22 walks.
“We all get along great,” Aldrich said. “Our relationship with our whole team is that way, but especially the pitching staff. Me, Nick Dean, Nick Fossile and Dominic Grady all played for the same Little League team, so we’re best friends. We’ve spent so much time together, so we’re kind of bonded to each other.”
Bensalem has always had a competitive program in the rugged SOL in Aldrich’s four years, going 11-8 overall in each of the past two seasons and 10-8 in 2015, with SOL National marks of 6-6, 6-8 and 6-8, respectively, during that time period. This season, the Owls have taken it to another level, and at 7-1 have already won the most league games in one year since Aldrich has been around with six regular season games still remaining.
The Owls average just under six runs per game on offense, but in two of their wins they have scored 13 and 15 runs; take away those two, and the team scores just under four per contest, meaning pitching is where this team’s bread is truly buttered. That’s not to take anything away from the Bensalem offense, mind you, but rather brought up to emphasize the point that if the Owls can manage just a couple of runs, the opponent’s likelihood of winning is miniscule. Bensalem’s only defeat this season to date was a 2-0 loss to Council Rock South on April 18.
Despite the fact that Dean and Grady are juniors, this is a senior-laden Bensalem squad, with 11 of them in total out of the 16 players the team carries.
“It started off last year as juniors,” Aldrich said. “We knew all the guys we had coming back, and this year we’ve just gone out and played our hearts out. We’ve just been playing well and listening to our coaches. The pitching has helped a lot, but it’s not just that. Defensively, we’re playing well and not making many errors and we’re getting key hits when we need them. For me, I’m just trying to throw strikes, let them hit the ball and have my fielders who I trust behind me make plays.”
Aldrich’s numbers on the mound in 2018 look like this: 4-0 record with a 1.07 ERA, with 36 strikeouts stacked against 14 walks. In 26.1 innings, he’s allowed 20 hits and eight runs, only four of which were earned. He’s committed to play his college baseball at Monmouth University in New Jersey, whose notable alumni includes current Baltimore Orioles relief pitcher Brad Brach.
Bensalem head coach Harry Daut has led the program for the past five years, but has been around the game of baseball all his life. He pitched for the Owls and Temple University, and now, at 54 years old, has seen a lot of talented players. He couldn’t say enough complimentary things about Aldrich, both on the baseball field and away from it.
“I’ve been fortunate to have Steve since his ninth-grade year, and I’ve seen him come from this little kid to a high-character young man,” Daut said. “He’s humble and doesn’t say a whole lot, but he’s got a quiet confidence about him. There’s no doubt that he’s our team leader. The younger kids, they see how he acts with this calm demeanor, and they grab ahold of that and come to the field and try to act the same way he does.
“On the mound, he’s a power guy with a really good fastball and curveball. He throws strikes and mixes his pitches up well. There’s no doubt he’s a talented pitcher right now. He’s fearless and loves to compete, especially in the SOL. He never gets shaken out there, and he probably doesn’t even know it, but when he’s out there on the mound, he makes the other eight kids on the field so much more confident in themselves. If he gives up a couple hits, he comes right back. Nothing bothers him. He’s been that way his junior year. He pitched a lot his sophomore year too, but last season was when he really took off.”
When he’s not on the mound, Aldrich usually plays second base for the Owls, and he was a second-team All-SOL infield selection a year ago. Even though he’s known primarily as a pitcher, Aldrich has also gotten five hits in 23 at bats this season, scoring seven runs and knocking in eight while striking out just twice all year.
Even though he doesn’t say much and prefers to let his pitching do the talking, Aldrich recognizes his role as a senior leader on a Bensalem team with lofty postseason aspirations.
“Being a leader is always a great role to play for the team, especially when we’re winning,” Aldrich said. “I’m real quiet. I don’t like yelling or anything like that when I go out and play, but I still want to be a good leader and help out the younger kids. I want them to see how it’s done and how to work hard so that the program can be good for years in the future after I graduate.”
That should be no problem with Dean, who is bound for the University of Maryland on a baseball scholarship, and Grady returning for the next season, but nobody on Bensalem is thinking about 2019 just yet. A year after Pennsbury won district and state championships at the 6A level, the Owls have aspirations to achieve something similar.
“A lot of us are seniors in our last year, so who doesn’t want to go the farthest?” Aldrich asked. “We want to go as far as we can and do the best we can. None of us are worried about our individual stats; the only stat we care about is wins. In my last start against Neshaminy, I had five walks, but we got the win. It’s not about just me. I’m just one person. We wouldn’t be where we are without the outfield and infield catching the ball and our lineup getting key hits, bunting and stealing bases. We wouldn’t be anywhere close to 10-1 if not for all of that.”
Aldrich said he plans on studying business while playing baseball at Monmouth, though he’s not exactly sure what career he’d like to pursue just yet. He said he’s got plenty of time to figure that out, and his father is an electrician, so if all else fails he knows he could always get a job in the trades.
Away from the field, Aldrich described himself as a big-time family guy. He said he could spend all day hanging out with his sisters and cousins, and plans on hitting as many Phillies games as he can this summer before he leaves for college. Like any typical 17-year-old, he enjoys late nights spent being with his friends, and when he’s not playing baseball, he works at a local pizza shop that’s owned by a family friend. Aldrich also said he loves the beach, which certainly factored into his college decision, as Monmouth’s campus is walking distance — roughly a mile — from the ocean in New Jersey.
“I hadn’t heard of it before, but a kid I’m friends with who went to Bensalem goes there, and when I went to visit him I realized how close Monmouth was to the beach,” he said. “I’ve always loved the beach, and it’s not too far from home, which was huge for me because I’m such a big family guy. The coaches were really nice to me, and really did their jobs well in selling the school. I’m really glad I picked to go there. I’ve already met some of the players, so my biggest hopes are to just make a lot of new friends and win some games.”
Daut has no doubt Aldrich will succeed at the next level, and he’s certainly going to miss coaching him.
“He’s still relatively young at 17 and is still maturing as a player,” Daut said. “He’s only going to get better in college, and I think he’s going to be a heck of an asset to Monmouth, I really do.
“Steve, wherever we are, he’s the go-to guy to get in touch with the entire team and get them together for me if I’m on the run, which I have been often lately. I know next year I’m going to go into winter workouts and say to myself, ‘Man, who am I going to call now that I can’t call Steve?’ He has everyone’s numbers, so he’ll set up meetings and workouts. He just tells me, ‘OK, no problem, Coach, I’ll take care of it,’ and I get there and there they all are at the field. Steve is a humble, well-rounded kid with high character and I’m just so happy for him.”
Aldrich is very excited about his future, but right now, there’s no better time than the present. He and the Bensalem Owls have unfinished business to take care of before he packs his bags and heads to the shore in the fall.
“As excited as I am, I will miss how close all of our teams have been,” Aldrich said. “Especially how quick we got so close. I’ll miss every practice, all the coaches and all of my teammates, just going out there and competing with my friends. I’ll especially miss the Florida trips we took as a team, because it brought out the best in all of us.
“We have to stay together just like we are right now if we want to keep this ride going. We just need to stay close and not have the team break apart. Just keep playing clean baseball exactly like we are right now. We’re winning right now, so why can’t we later?”
