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Saturday, May 13, 2006

Some Shore Challenge results:

South Brunswick (15-4) scored on a sixth-inning infield hit Saturday night to defeat 19-2 CBA, 1-0, ending CBA's 11-game winning streak. It has been blanked (the other by Brett Brach of Freehold Twp., 5-0) in its defeats. Jordan Warncke (6-1) took the tough luck defeat on a five-hitter. CBA was held to three hits.

Toms River East 17-4) scored eight runs in the fourth inning of its 9-5 win over Ramapo (17-4) tonight. Joe Somma and Casey Gaynor had two-run singles in the inning which included two of Ramapo's five errors. Ramapo, according to TR East, handed Old Tappan its first loss of the season Friday.

TR East senior right-hander Joe Reilly went to 5-0 for the Ocean County champs.


Wall dropped a tough 3-2 Challenge decision to 19-2 St. Peter's. After a Craig Hughes RBI single got Wall within 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh the Knights had runners at first and third with one out. But the potential tying run was picked off third base on a failed safety squeeze.


St. Rose continued to rise to the Challenge winning a third Challenge game behind Anthony Ranaudo, 12-1 over Audubon. St. Rose at 18-0 is off to its best start since beginning 19-0 in 2004, a team that faded at the end. Audubon dropped to 12-6 so they must be a decent enough club.



Ocean bounced back from its Monmouth County loss to RBC with a 6-1 Challenge win over Linden.

A.J. Squillante had an RBI double, Dave Kaczka a sacrifice fly, Sean DaSilva an RBI double, and Kyle Norman an RBI single for Ocean.


Manasquan and Holmdel played Challenge games today but, far as I know ( wasn't here all day), failed to call in their results.

I heard Squan 10-2 lost from our Scott Stump who was there to cover St. Rose and that Holmdel lost too, 3-2...and am adding losses to their records (Sqaun 10-9, Holmdel 8-15) in our standings unless I hear officially otherwise.




Watched Brookdale Community College whip Orange County N.Y. 6-1 this afternoon after the Jersey Blues (38-8) drubbed UConn, Avery Point 15-2 to begin District action.

Brookdale hosts Orange (22-22) 11 a.m. Sunday and one more win sends it to its second consecutive Division II national Tournament. If Brookdale loses then a second game Sunday will decide the District winner, but Brookdale is not losing.

On Brookdale's 26-player roster I counted 18 former Shore Conference players. Among them Region 19 Player of the Year Joe Arminio (Point Boro) belted a long home run to left vs. Orange to back the three-hit pitching of Kevin Rickert (TR North). Ryan Beard (Point Boro) improved to 10-0 with the win over the Conn. team.

Damian Walcott (Freehold) plays a blanket covering centerfield for Brookdale and coach Johnny Johnson tells me Walcott could be drafted.

Ricket (7-1) and Beard (10-0) have become the one-two punch of the Brookdale staff this season.

I love that Johnson keeps track of the game as he hangs the scorebook on the dugout wall and scores every play himself. I wish more high school coaches would adhere to this practice as too often their "'callers'' are lacking in information and even the coaches themselves sometimes have trouble in this area.



The Monmouth University baseball team is in a nose dive as not even Brad Brach (6-3) from Freehold Township could prevent a double header loss today at Central Connecticut that dropped Monmouth into a first place tie with CCSU in the Northeast Conference. Brach, the sophomore right-hander who has been splendid all year, lasted only three innings in the second game 7-1 loss. Matt Coulson (Freehold) bowed in the opener 3-0.

Monmouth, losers of seven of its last eight, had only seven hits in the two games. With four games NEC games left it could be in danger of dropping all the way to fifth place and missing the NEC Tournament for the first time in a zillion years if it doesn't snap out of it.

I guess Joe Cummings (TR East, 6-3) will go in Sunday's rubber match though he went three innings Thursday in the tough loss to Rutgers.
Monmouth's pitching has been thrown out of kilter with sophomore Matt Marc-Aurele (arm issues according to the Monmouth web site) missing his last two starts and the hitting (it always happens this way) has gone south to boot.