One week to go..and "Standing Watergate"
Let's look ahead and then we shall look back. Coming up Sunday at 3 we'll have St. Rose (21-1) vs. Sacred Heart (21-5) at 3 at St. Rose (Shore Christian Academy) in the Non-Public B semifinal. St. Rose coach Dave Parnell told me this afternoon senior lefty Connor O' Brien will start for the Roses but Mike Mussina (Anthony Ranaudo) will be in action if needed.
Then it's TR East at Eastern in the SJ IV final if Eastern's standing water can find itself a seat (more on this later).
Ocean's CJ III champs will play in the semis Tuesday at TCNJ vs. the winner of Sunday's Seneca at Moorestown game . Seneca is ranked No. 1 in South Jersey by the Courier Post and now Ocean is No. 1 by the Asbury Park Press. Ocean has homered in six of its last seven games. Keith Weinkofsky's needs one more long ball to tie Mike Chiarella (10) for the school's single season home run record Mike set last year. Ocean needs one more win to tie the single season school record.
Where would we be without Del's record book?
Point Boro's bashers play Gov. Livingston Tuesday at New Egypt in the Group II semis. We expect these games to begin at 4 p.m. but that could be subject to change. We'll know for sure Monday.
Biserta and Heuer have become the local high school version of Mantle and Maris and or Gehrig and Ruth. How many high school teams have two players with 10 home runs in a season? If you know of any let me know. Most schools don't have players who hit 10 in their careers.
Monday we have the Monmouth County final, 4 p.m. at Monmouth Regional between CBA and RBC. I think most of us thought this also might be a Tuesday South Jersey Non-Public A championship game.
CBA was supposed to hit a ton this year with its hitting a question mark. It sort of worked the other way around at times. Of course, 24-4 so far isn't exactly awful, and CBA did finish first for a seventh year in a row in Class A North, but you're always wondering if CBA will ever again take that Non-Public A state title which has eluded it since 1977.
Yes, RBC coach Tony Martinez did consider putting Monday's starter J. C. Menna (7-0) into Friday's 27-22 fire storm at St. Augustine. But he told me he was concerned Menna might over extending himself and, he said, the umpires weren't calling a whole bunch of strikes anyway. Exhbit A might be the 30 walks the teams combined for.
CBA belted RBC last month, 20-2. Needless to say, Menna did not start that one.
Lost in the recent Ocean home run derby and its run to the Shore Conference and CJ III titles has been its fine pitching, and, the excellent season by young
Colts Neck which fell in the CJ III final. C Neck goes "up" to Class A North in 2007 and Ocean "down" to B North.
While Ocean should undoubtedly be a team to be reckoned with (preseason No. 1 perhaps?..maybe), Colts Neck will be very, very good. The Cougar kittens bring back almost everyone from their 18-11 team led by junior Dom Hayes. They should definitely challenge for the top of A North and at the least for that ""Public"' championship Ocean and Freehold Township shared this year .
Speaking of Township. What happened? Last weekend it was in the running for the Quadruple crown (four championships), and then - poof - season over. It lost in succession to Ocean in the SCT, that heart-breaker to Steinert in CJ IV, and to RBC in the MCT.
What happened was it had a terrific team and some wonderful players in Brett Brach and Damian Csakai, but ran out of gas and into some good pitching and some bad luck all at once. It's not like it's never happened before and won't again to good teams at this time of year. When you you play all these tournament games in a row, lose a few, and you're history. Which continues to make what Wall did (winning all four) in 2004 amazing.
and now to the Fisaco at Eastern Friday. If this was the Mike and the Mad Dog show, Dog would be barking, "Bad job by Eastern Mikeee, bad job. How could they not get the field ready when they had all day to do it? Bad job, Mikeee. Bad job."
Yes it seems to have been a bad job and I'm not going to re-hash everything but Eastern has certainly left itself open to criticism for its handling of "Standing Watergate."
Though no one at TR East will say so on the record, Raider Nation feels this was a deliberate ploy by Eastern to delay the game, have it rained out, so they could being their No. 1 arm (Pat Monaghan, 6-1) back the next day, now Sunday as it turns out. He was not eligible to pitch Friday.
I would hope this was not the case. We're talking teachers, educators here (of course we're talking that in Holmdel, too, but I digress).
Anyway, the very capable Adam Panoski gets the start for TR East Sunday with Casey Gaynor in the wings. I've got the feeling there's gonna be some runs scored in this one (so look for a 2-1 final!) I'm sure Mongahan is a fine pitcher but he didn't exactly baffle TR South in the game with the Indians earlier last week.
By this time next week the regular high school season (weather permitting) will be over It's been fun and we do have one more potentially action-packed week to go.
Then it's TR East at Eastern in the SJ IV final if Eastern's standing water can find itself a seat (more on this later).
Ocean's CJ III champs will play in the semis Tuesday at TCNJ vs. the winner of Sunday's Seneca at Moorestown game . Seneca is ranked No. 1 in South Jersey by the Courier Post and now Ocean is No. 1 by the Asbury Park Press. Ocean has homered in six of its last seven games. Keith Weinkofsky's needs one more long ball to tie Mike Chiarella (10) for the school's single season home run record Mike set last year. Ocean needs one more win to tie the single season school record.
Where would we be without Del's record book?
Point Boro's bashers play Gov. Livingston Tuesday at New Egypt in the Group II semis. We expect these games to begin at 4 p.m. but that could be subject to change. We'll know for sure Monday.
Biserta and Heuer have become the local high school version of Mantle and Maris and or Gehrig and Ruth. How many high school teams have two players with 10 home runs in a season? If you know of any let me know. Most schools don't have players who hit 10 in their careers.
Monday we have the Monmouth County final, 4 p.m. at Monmouth Regional between CBA and RBC. I think most of us thought this also might be a Tuesday South Jersey Non-Public A championship game.
CBA was supposed to hit a ton this year with its hitting a question mark. It sort of worked the other way around at times. Of course, 24-4 so far isn't exactly awful, and CBA did finish first for a seventh year in a row in Class A North, but you're always wondering if CBA will ever again take that Non-Public A state title which has eluded it since 1977.
Yes, RBC coach Tony Martinez did consider putting Monday's starter J. C. Menna (7-0) into Friday's 27-22 fire storm at St. Augustine. But he told me he was concerned Menna might over extending himself and, he said, the umpires weren't calling a whole bunch of strikes anyway. Exhbit A might be the 30 walks the teams combined for.
CBA belted RBC last month, 20-2. Needless to say, Menna did not start that one.
Lost in the recent Ocean home run derby and its run to the Shore Conference and CJ III titles has been its fine pitching, and, the excellent season by young
Colts Neck which fell in the CJ III final. C Neck goes "up" to Class A North in 2007 and Ocean "down" to B North.
While Ocean should undoubtedly be a team to be reckoned with (preseason No. 1 perhaps?..maybe), Colts Neck will be very, very good. The Cougar kittens bring back almost everyone from their 18-11 team led by junior Dom Hayes. They should definitely challenge for the top of A North and at the least for that ""Public"' championship Ocean and Freehold Township shared this year .
Speaking of Township. What happened? Last weekend it was in the running for the Quadruple crown (four championships), and then - poof - season over. It lost in succession to Ocean in the SCT, that heart-breaker to Steinert in CJ IV, and to RBC in the MCT.
What happened was it had a terrific team and some wonderful players in Brett Brach and Damian Csakai, but ran out of gas and into some good pitching and some bad luck all at once. It's not like it's never happened before and won't again to good teams at this time of year. When you you play all these tournament games in a row, lose a few, and you're history. Which continues to make what Wall did (winning all four) in 2004 amazing.
and now to the Fisaco at Eastern Friday. If this was the Mike and the Mad Dog show, Dog would be barking, "Bad job by Eastern Mikeee, bad job. How could they not get the field ready when they had all day to do it? Bad job, Mikeee. Bad job."
Yes it seems to have been a bad job and I'm not going to re-hash everything but Eastern has certainly left itself open to criticism for its handling of "Standing Watergate."
Though no one at TR East will say so on the record, Raider Nation feels this was a deliberate ploy by Eastern to delay the game, have it rained out, so they could being their No. 1 arm (Pat Monaghan, 6-1) back the next day, now Sunday as it turns out. He was not eligible to pitch Friday.
I would hope this was not the case. We're talking teachers, educators here (of course we're talking that in Holmdel, too, but I digress).
Anyway, the very capable Adam Panoski gets the start for TR East Sunday with Casey Gaynor in the wings. I've got the feeling there's gonna be some runs scored in this one (so look for a 2-1 final!) I'm sure Mongahan is a fine pitcher but he didn't exactly baffle TR South in the game with the Indians earlier last week.
By this time next week the regular high school season (weather permitting) will be over It's been fun and we do have one more potentially action-packed week to go.
posted by Tony Graham at 11:09 PM
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