Baseball: Montclair Prep lives on in CJ Picerni, drafted by Washington Nationals

Montclair Prep in Van Nuys used to have one of the best baseball programs in the San Fernando Valley. It produced the likes of Torey Lovullo, Brad Fullmer and Russ Ortiz until it closed down its sports program in 2011 and shut it school the next year.

Now the Mounties are going to live on after one of its final graduates, catcher CJ Picerni, was drafted on Saturday in the 31st round by the Washington Nationals.

He graduated from Montclair Prep in 2011, attended junior college, then played for NYU, which restarted its Division III baseball program in 2015 after a 41-year hiatus. He’s the first player drafted from NYU in more than 40 years.

Picerni played on a final Montclair Prep team that included draftee Max Fried and college players Myles Hager, Nick Suniga and Sean Adler.

He had 80 hits and 54 RBIs in his two-year college career.

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