By Jillian Fellows:
Picture via https://twitter.com/ACGreyhoundsBB
Quinn Moynihan always knew he would come back to Worcester to play his favorite sport. Wearing Assumption blue and batting in the clean up spot for the Hounds, he certainty is doing just that.
“I love how [Worcester is] an old city,” says the newest addition to the Greyhound’s baseball roster. “My family is here. All my friends are here. I’ve been here my whole life.”
This past December, Moynihan returned to Worcester to join the Assumption team as a graduate student, playing his fifth year of college baseball. His last few years were spent at Lipscomb University in Tennessee, where he played Division One baseball in the Atlantic Sun division. It was a long ways away from his beloved hometown.
The twenty-three year old grew up on Burncoat Street along with his best friends. “It was all the neighborhood guys I grew up with,” Moynihan remarks of his childhood beginnings in baseball. “It was the guys I played little league with.”
Moynihan led his high school team to a division championship his senior year, and he was a Worcester Inter High All-Star in the 2011 and 2012 seasons.
After his career at Burncoat High School, the young athlete attended Bridgton Academy, a preparatory school in Maine, before heading off to college. “I wanted to get a little bigger and stronger,” says Moynihan on his decision to attend the academy.
During his year at Bridgton in 2012, Moynihan was named the MVP of the New England Club Baseball Association. The recognition came after the academy won the NECBA Championship that same year, after a season high win record of 30-9.
Moynihan had a choice of playing for some notable schools, including the University of Connecticut, Maine, and the College of the Holy Cross. The young star ultimately chose Holy Cross, following in his father and brother’s footsteps, who played baseball at the college before him. “I knew the coach pretty well, and it was right down the street from my house,” says Moynihan. “It just seemed like a good fit.”
After just one year at Holy Cross, Moynihan decided to transfer. “It was mostly academic,” he says. “I didn’t know what I wanted to major in… Ultimately it just wasn’t for me.”
The Worcester native decided to move to Tennessee and become a Lipscomb Bison for his remaining three years of college. “My brother went down there to play an extra year of baseball because he was in grad school,” he says. “I kind of fell right into place.”
The two brothers, Quinn and Connor, got to play a year of baseball together at the school before Connor graduated in 2014. Quinn continued a successful career at the University, and was part of the team’s 2015 Division One ASUN Conference championship.
At the end of his last year at Lipscomb, Moynihan wanted to come back home to Worcester and reunite with his family again. “I guess it was kind of an excuse to say, ‘hey guys, I’m done down here. I’m gonna go back home now,'” says Moynihan, who chose the Special Education graduate program at Assumption.
The second basemen, who now plays center field for the Hounds, has had a very successful 2018 season so far. In the first 30 games of the season, he’s batted a .372, driving in 15 RBIs with 45 hits so far.
Although Moynihan is in a graduate program for education, his dream isn’t so much in teaching. “Off topic, I want to open up a Barbecue restaurant in Worcester,” says the twenty-three year old, who developed a passion for the food down in Nashville. He dreams to one day open up his own BBQ place on Shrewsbury Street with the help of his friend.
For now, he is content on playing baseball and helping his team to a playoff spot this spring. “I just don’t wanna have any regrets , or hold my self back,” says Moynihan. “I’m just kind of letting it loose and going for it.”
THE AC301 