Ridge players greet Matt Martine at home plate, after the senior hit his first varsity home run, pinch hitting in the 5th inning of a 15-3 win over Immaculata in the Somerset County Tournament semifinals at Diamond Nation in Flemington on May 20, 2024. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
It was supposed to be an easy day for the Central Jersey Sports Radio broadcasters.
After a while regular season of finding the best viewing spot to call the game, making sure our battery packs are charged, heading to TD Bank Park in Bridgewater for the Somerset County Tournament is a highlight of the year. Not just for us. It’s big for the student-athletes, coaches, parents, and fans.
But a water main break outside the home of the Somerset Patriots changed all that. With no water, they couldn’t open the building to the public, and a call from SCT Director and Immaculata AD Tom Gambino gave us the news: We’re going out to Diamond Nation.
Gambino executed this all perfectly, a testament to his many years of experience running the events. One of the banes of broadcasters is when you have the entire pregame timed out to the minute, and the game starts three minutes early.
But not this time. Gambino got the teams there, the umpires arrived on time, and the fans came too. There were at least a couple hundred there by the time Bridgewater-Raritan and Watchung Hills were right in the thick of a heated battle around 5:00.
Oh, and both games started spot on, on time. Not a minute late, not a minute early. 1:00 and 4:00 straight up.
That’s how you run a tournament, in the face of adversity.
Read on for more notes and observations from a wild day in the Somerset County Tournament semifinals.
Finals berth at opposite ends of the spectrum…
For the two teams that will meet Friday in the finals at TB Bank Park – 6 pm on Central Jersey Sports Radio, presented by Zoned Sports Academy – they’re much different in terms of recent history.
Top-seed Bridgewater-Raritan is in the title game for the first time since 2012. They lost 4-3 that year to arch-rival Hillsborough in a 12-inning affair. The Panthers will be making their fifth appearance in the title game. They also lost in 1998 and 1997, a year after they won their only championship, defeating Immaculata 7-5 in the 1996 final.
For third-seed Ridge, they haven’t missed the final in the last four tournaments, covering a span of seven years. They made it in 2019, losing 6-5 in 12 innings to Immaculata. The next year, COVID hit, and wiped out the baseball season. There was no tournament in 2021 either, as the leadership believed there was not enough time to get enough games in to properly seed the tournament and fit it all in during an abbreviated season.
In 2022, Ridge was the top seed, and won the title, beating Rutgers Prep 6-0. Last season, they were the second seed, but lost 1-0 to 12-seed Rutgers Prep in an instant classic.
Ridge will be making its 17th appearance in the SCT final. They’ve won seven. They’re also the only school to qualify for the Somerset County Tournament finals in every decade it’s been held, with their first appearance in 1976. They also made the ’79 title tilt, made it six times in the ’80s, once in the ’90s, twice in the 2000s, and three times in the 2010s. This will be their third trip in the 2020s.
Rible wasn’t even at his best. Wait, What?
Cory Rible has pitched in 12 games for Bridgewater, all as their closer/stopper. While they only have three losses overall, the Panthers have won every game he’s pitched in this season.
After Monday, he’s now 13-for-13.
He looked phenomenal, mixing pitches and speeds, blowing the fastball by Watchung Hills’ hitters.
He entered the game in a tight spot: fourth inning, bases loaded, one out, in a 2-2 ballgame. He struck out the first two hitters he faced to get out of the inning.
Then, after the leadoff hitter in the fifth reached on an E6, and Ethan Byrd singled, he got a strikeout looking, a second swinging, and the third looking to get out of the jam.
He struck out the first two hitters of the sixth before inducing a groundout to first, snapping a streak of seven straight outs recorded via strikeout.
And in the seventh, he got a strikeout of the leadoff hitter, allowed a single, then got a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning.
After the game, Max Newill said Rible didn’t even have his best stuff. He went 3-2 on a couple of hitters, and doesn’t normally go that deep into counts.
If that’s not his best, look out. Rible looked phenomenal. And when the game was over, what was the first question he asked Newill?
“Can I pitch Friday?”
Yes, he can. Throwing 65 pitches, he’ll have 45 available for Friday’s final.
Ridge bats coming alive at the right time…
This year hasn’t been one of the top offensive years in Ridge history, and they’ve always had solid pitching, but they always say it’s not where you start but where you finish, right?
Well, Ridge has played 26 games. And through May 6th, in their first 19 games, they scored in double figures just once, in an 11-1 win over Somerville. They scored 81 runs in that span, for an average of 4.3 runs per game.
But since then, Ridge is on a seven-game winning streak, and with little surprise. They have scored 65 runs in those seven games, an average of 9.3 runs per game. They’ve scored ten runs or more in four of them, and have scored 25 runs in two SCT games, in just 12 innings – since Monday’s semifinal win was only five innings due to the ten-run rule.
The Red Devils are coming to the wire like a throroughbred.
Emptying the bench…
Including a pinch runner and a courtesy runner who didn’t make it into the official box score, Ridge head coach Tom Blackwell took the foot off the gas pedal in their 15-3 win over Immaculata and used 18 players in Monday’s semifinal win.
In the top of the fifth, the final inning of the game, Blackwell sent six pinch hitters to the plate in an innning where seven came to bat. Andrew Reynolds – who was pitching at the time – was the only one he didn’t pinch hit for.
And the bench went wild when Matt Martine came to the plate, 1-for-8 on the season. He blasted a home run to left field that prompted a celebration at home plate as if they had just won the title.
Maybe Friday.
Click below to hear senior Matt Martine hit his first varsity home run for Ridge:
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