Big season for Papaj with Ohio Elite

Contributed Photo – Aidan Papaj pitching at the Triple Crown Summer Nationals in Myrtle Beach.

Coming off a big freshman season when he helped Medina High capture league and sectional titles and earn a berth in the state semifinals, Aidan Papaj has also enjoyed a banner summer season of major tournament competition as a shortstop and pitcher with the Ohio Elite Baseball team.

Because of Medina’s deep run into the postseason, Papaj was able to only play about half of the season with Ohio Elite. In fact the same day Medina lost in the semifinals at Binghamton he traveled to play with OEB in a tournament at the Lumberyard in Cortland.

Papaj’s season has been highlighted by his earning MVP honors at the Triple Crown Summer Nationals in Myrtle Beach, SC last weekend where he helped hit and pitch the Ohio Elite to the tournament championship.

Rebounding from an 0-1-1 start in pool play, Ohio Elite scored a pair of wins on day one of bracket play including a victory over the top seeded Carolina Hurricanes. However a split of the next two games dropped OEB into the losers bracket of the double elimination tournament.

Having to win three straight games on the final day to claim the title, OEB opened with a narrow 4-3 win over the Hurricanes as Papaj went 4 for 4 at the plate and pitched the final 5 innings allowing no earned runs with 2 hits and 11 strikeouts. He returned to his shortstop spot in the second game win and had 2 hits and 2 RBI’s as OEB advanced to the title game against Rake Baseball. In the title contest Papaj helped lock up OEB’s 1-0 win by pitching the final two innings registering 6 strikeouts.

For the tournament, Papaj hit .592 and also went 3 for 3 in pitching saves allowing only 2 hits and 1 earned run with 18 strikeouts in 8 innings of work.

This marked the third tournament championship in as many weekends for OEB with Papaj pitching the last innings.

The previous weekend (July 11- 14) OEB won the PBR Underclassman Tournament in Toledo, Ohio. Rebounding from an opening game loss, OEB won the next 5 games on the weekend to claim the title. Papaj hit .562 on the weekend and pitched 5 total innings while recording 8 strikeouts, 5 walks and allowing only 2 runs and earning two saves.

The weekend prior (July 4-6) was the Firecracker Tournament in Mentor, Ohio where OEB went 5-0 to claim the title. Papaj played shortstop and he hit .538 on the weekend. He pitched 6 total innings only giving up 2 hits, no runs, 10 strikeouts, no walks and was 2/2 for saves on the weekend.

For the season with OEB, Papaj hit .494 with 25 RBI’s and pitched 29.1 innings allowing 16 hits with 51 strikeouts posting a 4-1 record with 7 saves.

This past weekend was not the first time that Papaj has been named MVP of an east- coast tournament.

In 2023, he played in the All-Ripken games in Aberdeen, Maryland leading his team to the championship and winning the Home Run Derby. He was awarded MVP for the week and his performance got him an invite to the very first All-Ripken Future Games in Florida this coming December.

In 2022, he helped lead the North Tonawanda Americans to a championship at the Crab Week Tournament at the Ripken Experience in Aberdeen Maryland earning MVP honors.

This past spring Aidan also participated in a PBR event that got him an invitation to the New York State games. His performance there got him in an invitation to represent NYS at the Super Sophomore games at Wake Forest which occurs the first weekend of August.