Edison may be the seventh-place team in the Red Division, but they are 12-9 and here in the Jim Muldowney GMC Championship Tournament semifinals. Middlesex may be the third-place team from the White Division, but they’re the hottest team in the league right now, winners of nine straight.
So, why shouldn’t they be playing for a trip to the title game, in what was one of the widest open GMC Tournaments in many years?
Talk to many of the coaches around the league, and they’ll tell you all 16 teams that played in the first round had a chance to win it. That first round? We had five one-run games, two decided by two runs each, and four extra inning games.
If that doesn’t spell competitive balance, we don’t know what does.
Saturday, it’ll be two double-digit seeds – No. 10 Middlesex and No. 11 Edison – going at it in the GMC Tournament semifinals at Ray Cipperly Field in East Brunswick. It’s the opening game of a doubleheader you can hear on Central Jersey Sports Radio, with St. Joseph-Metuchen and Spotswood to follow at 2:30.
Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel will call all the play-by-play; click here to listen.
Here’s a closer look at the first semifinal game of the day:
(10) Middlesex (15-4) vs. (10) Edison (12-9)
12 noon on Central Jersey Sports Radio (LISTEN LIVE)
PROBABLE PITCHERS:
Middlesex: Chris Kozak (3-3, 0.89 ERA)
Edison: Connor Muprhy (4-2, 1.19 ERA)
PREVIEW INTERVIEWS:
HOW THEY GOT HERE:
Middlesex: The Blue Jays may the hottest team in the GMC right now. They’ve won nine straight, including their first two tournament games, and right before that they went up to Morris County and beat Delbarton, 5-3, on May 8th. In the first round of the GMCT, it was a 3-1 decision over Colonia behind a complete game effort from Chris Kozak, Saturday’s starting pitcher. On Thursday, it was a 5-4 win over second-seed South Plainfield, one of two top four seeds to go down in the quarterfinal round.
Edison: The Eagles’ first two games in the GMCT came on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. First, they beat 6-seed Old Bridge in the first round on Monday, 2-1 in 12 innings, a game that took nearly four hours. Then, in the quarterfinals, they jumped on third-seed and White Division champion St. Thomas Aquinas, scoring seven runs in the first two innings en route to a 9-1 blowout victory.
TOP HITTERS:
Middlesex: Two of the top regulars have 20 hits apiece, in Dominic Long (.413) and Dylan Ianiero (.370), and the scariest part is both are sophomore. Long leads the team in slugging percentage at .524.AS a team, the Blue Jays are hitting .325, but they have eight players hitting .333 or better, and two more with 20 points of .300; that’s a solid lineup top-to-bottom. Owen Reynolds and Dom Parenti have the only two home runs this year for Middlesex. Chris Kozak leads the team in RBIs with 16 on the season.
Edison: The Eagles are hitting below .300 as a team (.275) but are lef by Dom Innocenti, hitting .386, and one of three players with a team-best 17 runs batted in. Robert Roma – also one of the team’s top pitchers – is hitting .362, while Daren Tirado is at .356. Those are the only three batters hitting better than .300 on the season. Innocenti also has three home runs, Connor Murphy has two, and Roma has one.
LAST FINALS BERTH:
Middlesex is seeking just its second trip to the finals. They won the championship in their only other appearance, which came in 2012. The Blue Jays were the third-seed and upset top-seed Sayreville 10-4. That team finished 25-3 under Mike O’Donnell, now the Middlesex AD and the GMC’s Baseball chair. That team started the season 17-0, with just two regular season losses: one to Dunellen, one to Elizabeth. They got knocked out of the state tournament in the opening round of Central Jersey Group 2 by Point Pleasant Boro, 3-0. However, that game came in the middle of the GMCT. Ironically, that year they also faced South Plainfield in the quarterfinals, which was the last time they did so, and – like this year – scored five runs, in a 5-4 victory.
Edison hasn’t been to the finals in 2001, but at that time, the Eagles were the dominant team in the GMC under late head coach Jim Muldowney, who passed away last Spring, and for whom the GMC Tournament was named earlier this season. Edison made the finals nine times in 12 seasons from 1990 – only the fifth year of the GMC Tournament – through 2001, and won eight of them. Their 8-1 record in the finals is the best of any team that has won more than one final. Right behind them is St. Joseph-Metuchen, which is 8-2 in ten trips to the finals, a league record.
PAST COVERAGE:
Middlesex
- Final Four is set for the Jim Muldowney GMC Championship as St. Joseph, Spotswood, Middlesex, Edison all advance
- Middlesex outlasts South Plainfield, pulls 5-4 upset in GMC Tournament quarterfinals
- Middlesex wins pitchers’ duel, tops Colonia 3-1 behind solid Kozak in GMC 1st Round
- INSTANT REPLAY: Middlesex 10, Sayreville 0 (6)
- Kozak shines for Middlesex as Blue Jays “walk off” Sayreville 10-0 for fourth straight win
- Sayreville, Middlesex square off Tuesday as Bombers, Blue Jays look to make inroads in highly competitive GMC White
- Alum Blaze Iannetti elevated to head baseball coach at Middlesex after Nastasi steps down
Edison
- Final Four is set for the Jim Muldowney GMC Championship as St. Joseph, Spotswood, Middlesex, Edison all advance
- Jim Muldowney GMC Tournament Quarterfinal Preview: Eight teams seek trip to Saturday’s semis in wide open playoff
- Wild first round of GMC Muldowney Championship Tournament sees four upsets; South River shocks top-seed Woodbridge in nine
- INSTANT REPLAY: No. 6 Old Bridge 6, Edison 2
- Old Bridge earns split in split series with Edison, 6-2 behind solid start from Penkala
- Edison vs. Old Bridge home-and-home finale moved to Wednesday due to rain in forecast
- Edison baseball honors Muldowney with trio of first pitches from Lehman, Appelman, Brownlie
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