St. John's senior baseball batting champ hot in summer, anything but cold in winter

Earlier this year, the Storm's Blake Fudge wrapped up a stellar junior hockey career with the CBR Renegades

Blake Fudge has been in the top 10 scorers in the St. John's Junior Hockey League in the past three seasons, and he has shown he is just as handy on the diamond as he is on the ice. — CBR Renegades

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Blake Fudge, the high-scoring St. John’s Junior Hockey League star during the winter months, can swing a pretty good baseball bat in the summer.

Fudge, who toils for the Storm, is the 2020 St. John’s Molson Senior Baseball League batting champ after hitting an even .500 this past summer.

Fudge edged out Ryan Sweeney of the RMM Gonzaga Vikings, according to final stats released by the league.

Fudge was 15-for-30 this season and Sweeney went 16-for-34 at the plate for a .471 average. Hitters required a minimum of 36 plate appearances to qualify for the batting title.

Fudge stars for the CBR Renegades of the junior hockey loop. He was 10th overall in league scoring last season, seventh overall in 2018-19 and was second amongst all junior hockey scorers during the 2017-18 hockey season.

Fudge also led the senior baseball league this season with a .667 slugging percentage and .571 on base percentage.

In other offensive categories, Gonzaga’s Eric McKay had a league-leading 22 hits and 21 runs scored, and teammate Matt Parsons led all hitters with 16 RBI. Dylan MacKenzie of Shamrocks led the league in thefts with 15 stolen bases.

As for the pitchers, Shamrocks’ ace Scott Goosney had another big year, going 5-0 with Gonzaga’s Dave Lahey. Goosney was a senior league workhorse, pitching a league-high 34 innings.

Teammate Matt Murphy had the lowest earned run average, at 0.99, but Goosney was right behind in second place at 1.59.

Ben Kennedy of the Vikings recorded a league-high 41 strikeouts.

SENIOR LEAGUE STATS

Intermediate league

Last year’s intermediate rookie of the year, Declan Barron of Holy Cross, won the batting title in the intermediate circuit, hitting .487 (19 for 39), edging out Shamrocks’ Alex Curtis (.476).

Barron and teammate Evan Reid tied for the most RBI, each knocking in 18 runs.

Steven Rideout of the Storm led the league with 22 hits, and Nick Evans of Holy Cross and Shamrocks’ Steven Abbott both scored 24 runs. Abbott had a league-high 21 stolen bases.

Curtis had the best on base percentage (.585) and Rideout the top slugging percentage (.681).

Curtis also impressed on the hill in 2020, going 7-0 for the Shammies with a 3.77 ERA. Teammate Michael Molloy had a 1.86 ERA, second only to Storm’s Isaac Doyle, who recorded a 1.40 ERA.

Doyle and Graham King of Shamrocks both struck out 32 hitters, tops in that category.