St. Joseph takes on Woodbridge in the GMC Tournament semifinals at East Brunswick Tech on May 21, 2023. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
Baseball is truly unlike any other sport.
But rather than extol its virtues, the one detriment is that pitching takes time.
It takes time to get the feel of the ball, rediscover the mechanics, find a connection with your catcher, and so on. It’s why spring training for Major League ball players is about six weeks.
So when you have significantly more inexperienced pitchers – i.e., high schoolers – getting only about a week to figure it out due to the new NJSIAA calendar, well, the results don’t automatically come right off the bat, so to speak.
Good thing St. Joseph of Metuchen coach Mike Murray has kids like Robbie Carvelli, Josiah Brown, Christian Azcona, and veteran catcher Mark Gialluisi in the lineup.
Their bats helped St. Joe’s in the early going, and now that the pitching has come around, the Falcons are playing their best baseball at the right time: in the county tournament.
Saturday, third-seeded St. Joseph (13-7, pending Friday’s game at Bridgewater-Raritan) will take on 7th seed South Plainfield (11-10) in the first game of the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament semifinals at East Brunswick Magnet School’s Ray Cipperly Field.
Game time is 12:00, the first of two semifinal games, both of which you can hear on Central Jersey Sports Radio – driven by Auto Lounge of Edison beginning at 12:40 pm with Mike Pavlichko and Justin Sontupe calling all the action. Click here to listen.
The Falcons are seeking their third straight trip to the GMC Tournament title game, having won the event in 2021 – the first year after COVID – but falling last year to North Brunswick in the finals.
And should they reach their tenth GMC championship game overall – where they are 7-2 all-time, with six shutout wins – it could be a rematch of last year’s final, with top-seed and defending champion North Brunswick taking on fourth-seed Monroe in the other semifinal at 2:30, which can also be heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio.
Click below to hear Centreal Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko talk with St. Joseph head coach Mike Murray about the progression of his team in 2023:
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