Manville, Montgomery to play at TD Bank Park Wednesday in first meeting in over a decade

The last time Manville and Montgomery met on the baseball diamond, Barack Obama was president and David Letterman was still on TV every night.

The Cougars won that game 16-1. But this isn’t April 2014.

It’s eleven years later, and the two will meet for the first time in eleven years Wednesday when they square off at TD Bank Park in Bridgewater for a 6 pm game you can hear on Central Jersey Sports Radio. Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel will call all the action. Click here to listen.

Montgomery is just 3-11 with a very young team that is still finding its way, Head coach Peter Mueller says a lot of it is growing pains, and self-inflicted wounds.

Manville is 9-5, and earned a first round bye in the upcoming Somerset County Tournament, which actually begins Wednesday, though the Cougars will play their game Thursday at 4:30 at Diamond Nation against 13th-seed Pingry. The Mustangs will are the 10-seed and will visit seventh-seed Hillsborough at 4 pm Monday.

For Manville, they’re also young – there’s not a single senior on the roster – but they have been scrappy enough and gotten enough solid pitching from two key starters to sit four games above .500 coming into Wednesday’s matchup. Junior Evan Canica (2-1, 1.05 ERA) will get the start, but head coach Rob Snyder also will have fellow junior Josh D’Ambrosio available to pitch if he needs to. While he’s 1-2, he’s got the best ERA on the team at 0.91, having thrown 15 1/3 innings, third most on the team this year.

Monty is struggling at the plate, hitting just .206, but is led by John Donahue, who’s hitting .417 with five runs batted in and five extra base hits – a team best – including a home run. Manville’s top hitter is Brandon Shimp, who’s also 4-1 on the mound. He’s batting .441 with a home run and a team-leading 15 walks.

Snyder says the old adage “throw the records out the window” applies here, as he’s not looking at Montgomery’s 3-11 resume. They’re still a small school, a Group 1 going up against a Group 4 that has much more depth.

Click below to hear pregame interviews with both head coaches:

Correction:  an earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to Steve Donahue, older brother of John Donahue, who is on the current team.