Ryan Bonafede enters his second season as an assistant coach at Hilbert. He will be tasked with developing the Hawks catchers this upcoming year.
Last season Bonafede was part of a Hawks coaching staff that helped lead the program to arguably its’ most successful season in school history. The 2018 Hawks set a new program record with 8 wins in AMCC play, while tying the overall wins record with 11. The Hawks also set new marks in triples (17), RBI (166) and walks (125), while tying the team home run record (10). The Hawks also notched a pair of marquee conference wins in defeating nationally ranked La Roche for the program’s first win over a nationally ranked team, and ended a 36-game losing streak dating back to 1998 by defeating Penn State Behrend.
In 2017, the Hawks alum joined the coaching ranks after finishing off his playing career as the most decorated hitter in program history. While at Hilbert, Bonafede rewrote the record books, accounting for 6 career records and 7 single season records. He finished his career one hit away from the all time school record and is the only Hawk to garner team MVP honors 3 times. He garnered AMCC All-Conference honors in 2016 (2nd Team) and 2017 (1st Team), and in 2017 was the first player in program history to be named d3baseball.com All-Mideast Region (3rd Team).
In his senior campaign, Bonafede put together a season to remember finishing in the Top 10 in all of Division III in Batting Average (4th), On Base Percentage (5th) and Doubles/Game (7th) with a .476/.550/.50 respectively.
Bonafede has experience working Lancaster Baseball Clinics (2009-2013), Hilbert Baseball Clinics (2014-2017) and was an instructor and camp organizer for Team New Era from 2012-2015).
The Cheektowaga native graduated from Hilbert in 2017 with a bachelor of science degree in Business Management. He is currently pursuing an MBA in Finance at St. Bonaventure University and is expected to graduate in December of 2019.
