Sports

LIGHTNING ROD: George Washington’s Rodriguez focused on repeating as city champion

Every other week this baseballl season, George Washington catcher Nelson Rodriguez will give us an inside look at his team’s quest for a second straight PSAL Class A city title and his mission to get drafted in June’s MLB First-Year Player Draft. In this exclusive diary for NYPost.com, the four-year varsity player talks about last week’s National High School Invitational, his goals for the season and having legendary coach Steve Mandl back in the dugout.

Right now everything is going good; life is actually going great. I’m doing good in school, I’m hoping for good news in June [in the First-Year Player Draft]. If not, I’ll go to college at Central Arizona. That’s my life, playing baseball and going to school.

We played in the [National High School Invitational] tournament last week in North Carolina. We thought we had a chance. Unfortunately we didn’t play our best out there. I guess our team got nervous from the scouts. We didn’t play like we know how to play. Everything went bad. It will help us to know what we have to do better, play smarter, not commit errors. It will help us in each way.

Now we just have to focus on league games and forget about the past. We want to win all our games and try to win another PSAL championship. My hopes this spring is to take my team to a city championship and win it and hopefully get drafted in June.

I don’t have any workouts [for Major League teams] right now, but everything is going well. I got used to the scouts. My sophomore year I was nervous. They were there to watch my teammate Mike Antonio, but I started playing well and then a lot more scouts starting coming my junior year and I learned how to play in front of them. Now I don’t get nervous, I just have fun out there. I’m not thinking about the draft right now. I’m focused on my senior year, baseball and school.

[GW coach Steve Mandl] is a big member of our family. (Last year he was suspended by the PSAL for alleged illegal recruiting). We had to play our season without him. We won a city championship, but having him back is great because he’s a huge piece. Hopefully we go to the championship again.

Last Saturday, before going to North Carolina, we were playing Grand Street and Randy Rodriguez hit a single. The man on second scored and [star center fielder] Fernelys Sanchez was going to third and his foot got caught in the dirt. He fractured his ankle. It was emotional, knowing he’s not gonna be with us for a while. It’s difficult for the team and for everybody. We got to play harder. Hopefully he heals fast and can come back.

Check back with Nelson Rodriguez every other Thursday during the season. His next diary will run April 20.