Smithtown East baseball's Dylan Cogliano wins Paul Gibson Award as Suffolk's best pitcher
Smithtown East's Dan Cogliano accepts the Paul Gibson Pitcher of the Year Award at the Suffolk high school baseball All-Star banquet at East Wind Long Island in Wading River on Wednesday. Credit: Kathy M Helgeson
Dylan Cogliano isn’t the hardest thrower, but he was the best pitcher in Suffolk County this season.
The 6-1, 190-pound Smithtown East senior went 6-0 and pitched to a 0.51 ERA and a 0.71 WHIP with 64 strikeouts in 41 innings. He held opposing hitters to a .091 batting average and allowed 12 hits and 17 walks.
Cogliano earned the Paul Gibson Award as Suffolk’s top pitcher at the Suffolk County Baseball Coaches Association dinner Wednesday night at East Wind Long Island in Wading River. He is Smithtown East’s first Gibson winner.
“He isn’t a thrower, he’s a pitcher,” coach Rob Christensen said. “That’s what separated him. The art of pitching is being lost nowadays. He throws all four of his pitches for strikes at any point in the count and I think that’s why he was so successful.”
Cogliano’s fastball sat around 85 mph and was aided by his curveball, slider and changeup.
He threw a five-inning no-hitter and two one-hitters, but perhaps his most impressive performance came in a 1-0 win over Northport on May 13.
Cogliano struck out 13 in a two-hit shutout. The Virginia Wesleyan commit shared the mound with Northport’s Linus Frederick, a Hofstra commit.
“He loved the moment and the spotlight,” Christensen said. “The bigger the situation, the more pressure he was under, that’s when he was at his best. He went pitch-for-pitch with Linus Frederick, who is a legit Division I pitcher.”
Frederick struck out 11 and took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, but an infield single, a hit-by-pitch and an error gave the Bulls a walk-off win.
“It was probably one of the most well-pitched high school games on both sides this season,” Northport coach Sean Lynch said. “Dylan’s stuff was just dominant. We had a good offense this year, but he was mixing his pitches well, pitching backwards at times and just keeping our guys off stride. We didn’t square too many balls up against him.”
Christensen said Cogliano’s confidence in attacking the zone, regardless of the batter, was his best quality.
“When you don’t walk anybody and can throw four pitches for strikes, you’re going to be a dominant high school pitcher,” Lynch said. “That’s what he did, and that’s who he was.”
Matt Lindsay is a high school sports reporter who joined Newsday in 2022 after graduating from Stony Brook University.
