STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 Monsignor Farrell left-hander Joe Raimonda signed a National Letter of Intent to attend the University of Central Florida on a full athletic scholarship the Advance\/SILive.com has learned.<\/p>\n
Raimonda, who will be a three-year varsity player in the spring, was immediately impressed by the Division I school. The Knights compete in the Big 12 Conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was nothing I didn\u2019t like about the school when I visited,\u201d said the 6-foot-6 Raimonda of the Orlando, Fla., institution, according to a Farrell press release. \u201cI loved the campus, facilities and the atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raimonda will bring an impressive resume with him to head coach Rich Wallace at UCF. For starters, he led the Lions in strikeouts during each of his first two varsity seasons.<\/p>\n
Last year, the southpaw boasted a 5-1 record with a 2.08 earned run average and 48 strikeouts.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the secret to his success? Raimonda throws what Farrell head coach Bobby Mulligan refers to as a \u201cwipe-out\u201d slider. The long-time mentor also said the lefty sets up a nasty change-up with a fastball that\u2019s consistently in the 90s.<\/p>\n
Mulligan likens Raimonda to former Farrell star left-hander and current MLB free agent Tom Cosgrove.<\/p>\n
In addition to being enamored with UCF\u2019s campus life, Raimonda said he admired the strength of the Knights\u2019 program and the fact they compete in the Big 12 Conference. UCF has finished over .500 for nine straight seasons.<\/p>\n
In addition, Raimonda said he and his family feel extremely comfortable with UCF\u2019s coaching staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great fit,\u201d he admitted. \u201cMy family and I really appreciated how honest and nice the coaches were during the recruiting process.\u201d<\/p>\n
During a recent signing ceremony at the Oakwood school, Raimonda signed a few baseballs for some of his teammates. One of them asked him not to forget them when the baseball is \u2018worth money someday.\u2019<\/p>\n
He had an appreciative response for his teammates.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will never forget the love and support that I have received along the way,\u2019’ he said. \u201dI would not be here without my parents, coaches, teachers and teammates. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am honored that you are all here with me today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 Monsignor Farrell left-hander Joe Raimonda signed a National Letter of Intent to attend the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-72490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}