Midland Park’s seniors after their last home game with head coach Frank Clark. (Source: @mphsbaseball_ on Instagram)
With a 15-4-1 record, having won four straight games and endured a mid-April rough patch, the Midland Park baseball team was looking to finish the regular season strong heading into the state tournament, until the opposite happened.
The Panthers, who would enter the North 1, Group 1 playoffs as the two seed, lost four straight. There were two tight games – a 7-4 loss to Emerson Boro and a 6-4 loss at New Milford – then a 10-2 loss at Ridgewood in the Bergen County Invitational Final, and another regular season loss, 2-0, at Cresskill.
That last loss was the turning point, and time for a wake-up call. Would they pack it in, a victim of injuries to a solid pitcher in senior Anthony Carrea and one of their best hitters in junior Ralph Caprio? Or would they have a next-man-up mentality, suck it up and start winning?
The answer? Since then, Midland Park has won six in a row, including a 1-0 victory over Wallkill Valley to win the North 1, Group 1 title – the first sectional title in school history – and now is playing for the NJSIAA’s Group 1 state championship.
That game will take place Saturday at 1 pm at Bob DeMeo Field at Veterans’ park in Hamilton, where the Panthers (21-8-1) will take on Central Jersey Group 1 champion Middlesex (22-5) in a game you can hear live on Central Jersey Sports Radio. Click here to listen as Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel call all the action.
Midland Park has had a season of streaks. They won their first six games, then went 0-3-1 over the next four. They won five straight before a loss in the Bergen County Tournament first round at St. Mary-Rutherford before winning four straight, and going on that five game skid heading into the state tournament. Now, they’ve won six straight.
Senior Ryan Fleming is the team’s top hitter at .372, while Conor Shortway – who will play for Division III Mount St. Mary next Spring – has a team-leading 17 RBIs among active players. (The injured Caprio has 18.)
They may not score as much as Middlesex, but their pitching has been excellent all year, including those who have stepped up in Carrea’s absence. That includes junior Braiden Russel, who had been the Panthers’ closer, but now has thrown 40 2/3 innings, and is 4-0 with a 1.03 ERA.
Connor Detrick – who started and got the wins in the sectional quarterfinals and the title game – will get the ball Saturday against the Blue Jays, coming in at 8-3, with a 1.35 ERA, and about a 2:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 72 2/3 innings, the most thrown by any pitcher on the staff this season.
Click below to learn more about Midland Park from head coach Frank Clark, speaking with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:
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