Newport, RI- With the start of the Division I College Baseball season, the Newport Gulls will begin to release each player signed to the 2019 Roster. Peter Serutto, a freshman catcher from Rutgers University (Newark, NJ) is the first of the 33-man roster to be featured. 

 

Serutto, grew up just 20 minutes from Rutgers University in Short Hills, NJ. As a three-sport athlete at Milburn High School, not only was Serutto a standout on the baseball field, playing varsity since he was just a freshman, but he also earned accolades as a wrestler and on the gridiron as the team’s starting quarterback. Named First Team All- State, Essex County Player of the Year, and Millburn High School Athlete of the Year as a senior, Serruto hit .366 with four home runs and 26 RBIs and left as school’s all-time passing yards leader. 

 

Upon completion of a successful baseball career at Milburn High that included two Group IV State Championships, First Team All-State, First Team All-Conference, All-Group IV, and All-Essex County Honors, in addition to his Athlete of the Year awards, he was named an All-American Honorable Mention by Rawlings-Perfect Game. Perfect Game also ranked Serruto as the best catcher in New Jersey and the 21st ranked prospect in the state. 

 

Millburn High Baseball Head Coach Brian Chapman said: "Defensively, he's just off the charts, to the point where there's not even anyone I could compare him to that I have either coached or coached against, especially his throwing." In his final two years of high school baseball, Serruto threw out over 60% (23/38) of players that attempted to steal on him. The Cincinnati Reds selected Serruto in the 22nd Round of the 2018 First-Year Player Draft. Upon being drafted, Serruto was quoted as saying “When I got the phone call that the Reds had decided to pick me, it was the best news I think I've ever received in my life."

 

The Newport Gulls are excited to have Serruto join the organization this upcoming summer. He is hitting .364 over the first two weeks of the college baseball season and will be exciting to watch leading up to his arrival in Newport. 

 

The Newport Gulls, members of the 13-team New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL), are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, founded as the Rhode Island Gulls in 1998 in Cranston, R.I., before moving to Newport in 2001. In addition to recruiting, fielding, and developing a team of the nation’s top collegiate baseball athletes and attracting 50,000 fans annually to Cardines Field, the predominantly volunteer organization strives to benefit the community of Newport County via summer camps, reading programs, fundraisers, scholarships, and charitable donations – totaling over $1 million since 2001. The Gulls are six-time champions of the NECBL – the winningest franchise in league history – and were ranked as the overall No. 1 summer collegiate baseball team in the country by Perfect Game USA in 2012.

 

For more information about the Newport Gulls, visit facebook.com/newportgulls, follow the Gulls on Twitter @NewportGulls or visit www.newportgulls.com.