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A Few Clouds Calhoun senior named county's best baseball player
Calhoun High School senior Jake Thomas recently learned that he is the 2011 recipient of the Diamond Award, an annual honor given to the most outstanding offensive player and pitcher in Nassau County high school baseball. Thomas is the first Calhoun student in the school’s history to earn the award.
Thomas, of Merrick, received the honor on June 15 at the Nassau County High School Baseball Coaches Association dinner at the Marriot Hotel in Uniondale. A panel of 16 coaches determines the award recipient. Thomas was a runner-up for the honor last year, and this year he finally took it home.
“It’s such an honor to be the first one from Calhoun to do it,” said Thomas, who said the award caught him by surprise. “My heart completely stopped. It was surreal.”
Thomas finished this past season with a .485 batting average while hitting seven home runs and collecting 31 RBIs. He will play ball at SUNY Binghamton next year on a scholarship, and was the first catcher to win the award since 1994, when Bethpage’s Ryan Caulfield received the honor.
It’s appropriate considering that Thomas was also the inaugural winner of the 2011 Ryan T. Caulfield Award, given to the best catcher in Nassau County. Caulfield, a star athlete in his day, was diagnosed with lupus at age 18 and died in 2000 at age 23 after a five-year battle with the disease. The Ryan T. Caulfield Foundation was established in his honor by his family and friends to provide funds for the research and treatment of lupus.
Thomas was also the MVP of the seventh annual Grand Slam Challenge earlier in June, an all-star game between the top high school players in Nassau and Suffolk counties, sponsored by the Ryan T. Caulfield Foundation.
It’s one of many honors that Thomas has achieved during his Calhoun career. Selected to the All-Conference team in 2009 and the All-County team in 2010 and 2011, Thomas was also named the Calhoun team MVP in 2010 and 2011. He was the 2011 Conference AA-III MVP, and he became the first player in school history to hit three home runs in a game when he did so against Valley Stream Central this past May.
