More than 50 Iona Preparatory School baseball fans, including former teammates and coaches and family, recently traveled to Citi Field to cheer on recent Iona Prep baseball star Colin Moran, a graduate of the Class of 2010 and now the starting third-baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
In an interview before facing off against the Mets on June 26, the Rye native said he had not just learned how to be a better player at Iona Prep, but also a better person. “Everything they teach a young man is pretty important,” he told the Journal News. “My values in life I learned there.”
After graduating from Iona Prep, where he hit just under 0.400 with two home runs while serving as the team’s closer, Moran continued his baseball career at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. There, he made the freshman All-American team and was the ACC player of the year as a junior in 2013.
That same year, the Florida Marlins drafted Moran as their first-round pick, making him the sixth pick overall. He was traded to the Houston Astros in 2015 and joined the Pirates earlier this year. He now wears number 19 and is the starting third baseman, currently hitting 0.265 with seven home runs and 29 runs batted in.
Moran is the third Major Leaguer to emerge from Iona Prep, joining older brother and Class of 2006 alumnus Brian (taken by the Seattle Mariners in the 2009 draft), who currently pitches with the Los Angeles Dodgers AA affiliate Tulsa Drillers, and now-retired 1999 graduate Brian Slocum, who was drafted 62nd overall by the Cleveland Indians in 2002.
“Iona Prep is so tremendously proud of Colin and we’ll always be here cheering him on,” said Brother Thomas Leto, president of Iona Prep. “We’ve committed more than 100 of our scholar-athletes to collegiate athletics over the past few years, including 31 this year alone, but it’s always inspiring and uplifting to watch our young men like Colin succeed at the highest level.”
