YBL Medford Star - Sean Gildea leads Colby-Sawyer College!

2006 Yawkey League Cy Young Winner - Sean Gildea

The 2006 Yawkey League Cy Young Award Winner - Sean Gildea has continued his success at college. Sean was named All Conference Pitcher for Colby-Sawyer in New London, NH this spring.

Gildea led the Yawkey League in all pitching categories in 2006. He had a no hitter and led his Medford Mad Dog team to the YBL Championship Finals in just their third year in the League.

Sean is a likable "tow-head" who dazzles with a solid fast ball and a curve that begins on Monday and ends on Tuesday evening.

The Mad Dogs will fight once again for their Conference and League Finalist Titles as they open the season against Somerville on Saturday at Trum Field.

Gildea's - Yawkey League -- Medford Mad Dog Stats in '06:

13G; 7W - 3L; 67.2IP; 59H; 27R; 21ER; 35BB; 89K; 2.17ERA

Gildea Leads Colby-Sawyer College Baseball All-Conference Awards

NEW LONODN, N.H. – Colby-Sawyer senior Sean Gildea, a native of Haverhill, Mass., earned a myriad of Commonwealth Coast Conference Awards including CCC Pitcher of the Year, Senior Scholar Athlete Award winner and First Team All-CCC for his efforts this past season.

Three other Chargers, Chris Baker (Essex Jct., Vt.), Kris Ramsay (Gardiner, Maine) and Tom White (Lisbon, N.H.) also received Honorable Mention All-Conference for their role in leading the Chargers to an 18-19 season and a third place finish in the CCC regular season. Gildea went 5-0 in conference play on the mound for the Chargers, not allowing a single run in 29 innings of work. Gildea surrendered just 13 hits in his five appearances, striking out 31 during the regular season. Opponents batted just .134 against Gildea, who allowed just two extra-base hits in conference play.

On the season, Gildea allowed just nine earned runs in eight appearances, going 6-2. Gildea finished the season as Colby-Sawyer's all-time strike-out leader, fanning 169 batters in his career as a Charger. Baker finished the season 5-3 overall with a 1.80 ERA in nine appearances. He struck out 32 batters and walked just 14 while holding opponents to just a .256 batting average.

Ramsay finished as the Chargers leader on offense, batting .350 in 31 games for the Chargers. Ramsay finished the season with one home run, three triples and four doubles in 103 plate appearances. He also had a fielding percentage of .982 holding down centerfield for the Chargers. As a pitcher, Ramsay went 2-3 in six appearances, pitching 31.2 innings and striking out 18. White finished the season batting .257 in 109 plate appearances. He drove in 14 runs and had nine doubles on the year and walked 11 times. White also had two appearances on the mound for the Chargers, pitching 2.0 innings and surrendering one earned run.

The Chargers finished the regular season 18-17 and earned the No. 3 seed in the Commonwealth Coast Conference baseball tournament. In the tournament, the Chargers offense let them down, as they scored just one run in two games, falling 1-0 to Nichols and 3-1 to Endicott, ending their season at 18-19

Published: May 09, 2007 04:24 pm HAVERHILL GAZETTE

A day after fanning 17 Nichols College batters, Colby-Sawyer College senior Sean Gildea received the school’s Scholar Athlete Award.“Sean’s distinguished grade point average, along with his efforts on the baseball field this past year, made him a unanimous choice (for the award),” said Mitch Capelle, Colby-Sawyer’s sports information director, noting that the award “is presented to a graduating senior who made significant contributions to both the scholastic and varsity programs at the college.”

And it gets better, as the 22-year-old Gildea of Haverhill was named the Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) Pitcher of the Year and First Team All-CCC.“It was a good year,” said Gildea, son of Alicia and Robert Gildea. “Obviously, I would have liked us to have won my last game, but that’s baseball and I am happy with the way everything went this season.”Gildea’s “last game” was the above-mentioned 17-strikeout gem against Nichols in the CCC tournament. Despite Gildea’s effort in which he set a new school single-game strikeout record (the previous record was 12), Colby-Sawyer fell 1-0.“I have never felt that good in a game,” said Gildea of his outing against Nichols.“In the first inning I got the first guy out on a weak popup, then struck out the next two batters. When one of the outfielders came in to the dugout, he said to me, ‘You are feeling pretty good today, huh?’ He could tell I was on. I don’t think I have ever thrown that hard in my life.”On the season, Gildea went 5-0 in conference play (6-2 overall, 1.69 earned run average) and did not allow a run in 29 innings of work in the CCC. Gildea finished the season as Colby-Sawyer’s all-time strikeout leader with 169 in his career.

“Sean finished with one of the best seasons in Colby-Sawyer baseball history,” Capelle said, noting that Gildea’s earned run average this season was the third lowest in school history.Colby-Sawyer head coach Jim Broughton, who shepherded Gildea, a 2003 St. John’s Prep graduate, for four years, said Gildea’s successful season is a result of his own hard work in the offseason.“At this level, not all players get better each year,” Broughton said. “In fact it’s rare, but Sean did it. He made improvements each year and has had four very good years.“He did not always get the support in the field behind him and we didn’t always score a lot of runs for him, like what happened in the game against Nichols, but Sean was always very consistent and very good.”

As for making improvements each season, Gildea attributes it to playing for the past few years in the Yawkey League, a summer league in the Boston area, in which batters use wooden bats as opposed to the aluminum bats players use in college.Last summer, Gildea, who played for the Medford Mad Dogs, won the Yawkey League’s Cy Young Award, presented to the league’s top pitcher, with a 7-2 record and an ERA a tad over 2.0. In one game, he struck out 19 batters in eight innings of work.“It’s a very competitive league,” said Gildea, a lefty who stands 6-foot-3. “There are a lot of college guys and former minor leaguers playing. When you play against guys with wooden bats, it forces you to focus on control and hitting your spots. It (playing in the league) was a great way to help me build up for the fall (college) season.”With a fastball in the low- to mid-80s, Gildea is not overpowering on the mound, said Broughton, but the 22-year-old possesses a “sharp breaking ball” and keeps batters off-balance.

“The biggest thing Sean has going for him is that he works the strikeout zone really well,” said Broughton, whose squad finished the season at 18-17. “He moves the ball up and down and in and out and really keeps batters guessing.”Off the mound, Gildea, an exercise and sports science major with a 3.5 grade point average, is the class treasurer for the Class of 2007. He was a senior mentor for incoming freshmen student athletes and writes for the school’s newspaper.As for his baseball future, Gildea said he will play at least another year in the Yawkey League and will “see what happens.”“Sean’s a great kid, who had a great career here at Colby-Sawyer,” Broughton said of his star pitcher who this season was twice named the conference’s co-pitcher of the week.“He gets it done in the classroom as well as on the mound.”