South River’s Julius Rosado. (Photo courtesy Mike Lepore.)
Julius Rosado’s family won’t have to travel far to see him play college baseball. Heck, it’ll be a shorter trip than to some of the games his South River team plays in the Greater Middlesex Conference.
But he’s not thinking about Rutgers just yet.
Rosado continues to kill it day in and day out for the Rams, who are off to a 5-2 start. And it seems like every week or two he shatters another record in the annals of South River baseball.
Most recently, he picked up his 129th career hit in a 3-2 loss to Metuchen, and now has 130 for his career, a school record. But that’s not the only one he owns.
Head coach Mike Lepore, Jr., sent us a list of the career records Rosado holds:
- Hits: 130
- Doubles: 31
- Triples: 11*
- Home Runs: 27
- RBI: 114
- Runs: 151
- Walks: 81
- Batting Average: .556
That asterisk means Lepore isn’t sure what the school record is, and we all know record keeping over many decades is, how shall we say, inconsistent at best.
But that’s the antithesis of Rosado. He is amazingly consistent. He’s also got longevity, too. And then some.
“As talented of a player as he is, his character and leadership skills are off the charts,” says his veteran coach. “Of course he is proud of his individual accomplishments but he is more concerned about making his teammates better and helping his team win games.
To pitch the way he has in three-plus seasons, with a career 1.97 ERA in 152 2/3 innings pitched, and 251 strikeouts to just 70 walks. He also threw a five-inning no-hitter in May of his freshman year, a 12-0 win over East Brunswick Magnet.
At the plate, he’s hitting “just” .476 at the moment, but he’s never finished a season below .500. He hit .578 his freshman year – when he got an offer from and committed to Steve Owens at Rutgers – then hit .515 his sophomore year, and .594 last season, his best of the three.
But again, all that rubs off on his teammates.
“He makes everyone around him better and treats every kid in our program equally from freshman up,” Lepore said. “His parents have raised him right. He’s as humble a kid as you will ever meet.”
So, we sat down and talked to him about how he got started in baseball – he’s been playing since he was four! – we let him gush about his teammates, and we looked back at that no-hitter he threw his freshman year, that he didn’t even realize he had until it was over.
Click below to listen to Rutgers-bound South River senior Julius Rosado with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:
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