SENIOR WEEKS: Avon Grove’s Kelleher looking forward to next step at Christopher Newport

One of the great things about high school baseball is that over a four-year period you can see a marked improvement in certain players, especially when a concentrated work ethic comes into play.
Entering the 2020 baseball season, Avon Grove outfielder Shane Kelleher was set to make his mark on the diamond, before the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the cancellation of the entire spring sports season on April 9.
Kelleher was expected to be an integral part of first year head coach John Bellaver’s Red Devil squad.
“Shane is an athletic kid with tools who is just scratching the surface of his potential,” Bellaver said. “He is trying to figure out the transition from an athlete who plays baseball to becoming a baseball player. He would have been our starting center fielder and a middle-of-the-order bat. He was above average in the outfield, covers a lot of ground and he has a good arm.”
When the 2020 season was officially cancelled, Kelleher quickly adjusted his workouts and his focus on where he will be in the fall, as his workouts shifted to getting ready for college baseball.
“When I heard the season was officially off I think I adjusted better than most and took it well,” said Kelleher, who is headed to Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va. “I was sad my senior season was gone but I started focusing on next fall right away.
“My dad always told me if you get hurt and can’t play baseball you want to go to a college that you like without sports,” Kelleher said. “And Christopher Newport is a great school for my major which is environmental science. The school is right on the James River on the Chesapeake Bay and it is very scenic. I can’t wait to get there and I really liked the baseball coach when I visited there.”
Kelleher thought the Red Devils would be a serious contender in the Ches-Mont League’s National Division this year and he said he will remember his time at Avon Grove fondly.
“I will remember being a freshman and working real hard and then becoming a starter and that was a good feeling,” Kelleher said. “And I will really remember riding the busses with the rest of the guys to road games and that was a lot of fun. Baseball has a lot of good memories for me.”