The long wait is over! Bridgewater-Raritan tops Ridge to win first SCT title in 28 years

The last time the Bridgewater-Raritan baseball team won the Somerset County Tournament, exactly none of the players on the current team had been born.

That was 1996. Bill Clinton hadn’t even been elected to a second term as president.

Friday night, the top-seeded Panthers beat third-seed Ridge 10-7 at TD Bank Park in Bridgewater – as heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio, presented by Zoned Sports Academy – to win their second title as a program.

Cory Rible – the Panthers’ closer/stopper – again finished the game out for Bridgewater, which has won all 14 games in which Rible has appeared. Rible, reliever Joey Letko, and starter Owen Crimmins actually combined to throw a three-hitter against Ridge in a sloppy game that saw five combined errors between the teams, with a number of other miscues that didn’t even make it into the box score.

It was that kind of a game, and with the early start at 6 pm rather than the 7:00 first pitch of the last couple of years, several fly balls appeared to be lost in the sun, including a pop foul early in the game that BR catcher JR Rosado couldn’t get to 20 feet down the third base line, as he stumbled trying to reposition himself along the baseline.

Both teams loaded the bases in their respective halves of the first inning, but Ridge got nothing across, and the Panthers only got one on a sac fly by JR Rosado.

Ridge took a 2-1 lead in the third on a two-out two-RBI single by Zach Kucerka. But the advantage was short-lived.

The Panthers got five back to take the lead in the bottom of the third. And that came only via two hits. Red Devil starter Ben Larner walked two, and Ridge committed three errors in the inning, which say BR take a 6-2 lead.

Bridgewater-Raritan got two more in the fourth to make it 8-2, but Ridge closed to within two with a four-spot in the top of the fifth, making it 8-6. But the Panthers got two insurance runs back when Matt Lehberger led off with a single, Mike Fattore plated him with a triple down the right field line, and Matt Cichocki scored Fattore with a sac fly to left.

In the top of the inning, Panther coach Max Newill had seen enough walks. He brought in Cory Rible from the pen, and that was the beginning of the end for Ridge. He got hit team out of a jam, recording two outs with two on, then faced four batters in the sixth, stranding a runner who had reached on an error.

And though he gave up a run in the seventh – Kieran Callanan led off with a triple and scored on a wild pitch – he sealed the deal, bringing Bridgewater its first title in almost three decades.

The win puts the Panthers at 25-3, adding to what already was a program record for wins. Ridge falls to 21-7 as Brady Wilson took the loss in relief. Bridgewater starter Owen Crimmins got the win to improve to 8-0.

Click below for postgame reaction with head coach Max Newill and reliever Cory Rible, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen: