Here’s a bevy of local tids and bits to chew on as we wait for the weather to heat up now that we’ve reached mid-June. Enough of this fall-like nonsense, please:

—- How popular has the Bishop Guertin athletic director’s soon to be vacant job been? Well, the Cardinals received 175 – yes, that many, triple digits – applications. With that many, you can imagine the school is being very deliberate in coming up with a successor to Pete Paladino, who will move into an alumni affairs type position by month’s end. You can figure late June as a timetable.

“We’ve been evaluating candidates,” Guertin principal Jason Strniste said in an email. “We’re excited by the strong pool and confident that our next AD will bring the traits and experience to build on our athletic tradition. We intend to have an AD in place over the next couple of weeks.”

Wow, 175. Amazing. Of course, jobs are a very, very precious commodity right now, but this may be an unprecedented number.

—– This past week’s Major League Amateur Draft was not without Futures Collegiate Baseball League ties despite being only five rounds. In case you missed it, former FCBL player Cade Cavalli became the highest Futures League pick ever , taken in the first round by the Washington Nationals at No. 22 overall. Cavalli, a University of Oklahoma junior pitcher who played with the Pittsfield Suns in 2016 beat out the only other FCBL player ever taken in the first round. Why, that was none other than former Nashua Silver Knights first baseman Chris Shaw (2012). Shaw was the San Francisco Giants first pick at No. 31 in the 2015 draft and back in August of 2018 became the second of three former FCBLers to make it to the Majors.

Then, in the fifth round the other night, the Cleveland Indians selected Vanderbilt pitcher Mason Hickman, who was with the Martha’s Vineyard Sharks in 2017. Hickman was the draft’s 154th pick overall.

—There are college letter of intent signings and then there are signings turned into events. Former Nashua North softball standout Alexis Miranda’s official commitment to SUNY-Cobleskill on Sunday was the latter, a surprise celebration thanks to her dad, local football coach Ramon Miranda. One of Miranda’s business clients is Santi Deoleo, the Boston radio 94.5 FM JAMN morning host. He Mc’d a signing-graduation type party as Miranda did it up big for his daughter, who has been a workout warrior all spring in prepping for college and summer travel softball.

“He said to me once if I needed a favor, just ask,” Miranda said. “So he said ‘I’ll be there.’

“This was supposed to be her big year for softball. So she started working out, and lost 37 pounds but put on muscle. I always told her to set the bar high, and she has.”

So did her father. Great job.

—- Retired Alvirne coach Mike Lee – still too strange to write “former” – has a great story about his former Broncos pitcher, Kyle Jackson, the Nashua Silver Knights first year manager but longtime pitching coach. Jackson, when he got promoted to to the Red Sox Double A Portland Sea Dogs, needed a place to stay. Lee offered up a place he had at the time in Sacco, Maine. The only request were weekend tickets so Jackson’s former coach could see him pitch.

“He was the best I ever saw him that summer,” Lee said. “I will never forget, watching one of our own being the best he could be every time out.”

The Sea Dogs won the Eastern League that year, and Jackson was added to the 40 man roster. The next spring Lee watched him on the NESN spring training broadcasts pitch with the Red Sox in Major League exhibition games.

Then injuries took their toll, as we know. But speaking of injuries, also on that Portland team with Jackson was none other than a young center fielder named Jacoby Ellsbury.

—- Still in the Hudson-Litchfield area, congratulations to the new athletic director at Salem (Mass.) State, Hudson resident Nicolle Wood.

Wood has been the interim AD there this past year and also the women’s soccer coach since 2006, a job she will hold on to for the time being. And why not? She was MASCAC Coach of the Year in 2017 and also this past season. Wood has lived in Hudson with her husband and their two sons for years and her oldest played JV soccer at Alvirne this past fall, and youngest was in the Hudson youth soccer program, and says she does not mind the commute from this area to a school she’s long been associated with.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to wear the orange and blue since the beginning of my undergraduate career,” she said in a release.

Remember, the area has strong soccer ties to Salem State. On the men’s side, former Daniel Webster College coach Matt Correia is the Vikings head coach, landing that job after DWC closed four years ago.

—– It looks like the sport of auto racing is being kept alive and well, especially in northern New England. Claremont Motor Speedway is up and running, and in North Woodstock Hudson’s Joey Polewarczyk, Jr. finished third Saturday night in the Spring Green 120 at White Mountains Motorsports Park It was the opener of the American-Canadian Tour season (ACT) and Polewarcyzk is a former ACT champion.

—- Congratulations are in order for former Bishop Guertin cross country standout Jeff LaCoste of Amherst, who was recently named to the Big South Conference All Decade team. This was a no-brainer, as LaCoste won the Big South men’s championship in 2016 as a junior at High Point University, and was named twice to the NCAA Division I All-Southeast Region Team.

At last look LaCoste was still in the sports world as an account executive with the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets.

Tom King may be reached at 594-1251,tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or@Telegraph _TomK.

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