New Brunswick with its Ray Cipperly GMC Invitational Tournament trophy, after beating East Brunswick 5-2 at Edison High School on May 23, 2025. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
Knowing you have a young team coming back that graduated a slew of seniors, it’s not always going to be smooth sailing.
But New Brunswick baseball head coach Nico Vargas is playing the long game, teaching the kids, instilling a sense of doing things the right way, with the assumption – often correct – that the wins will come.
It’s happened before.
The Zebras won four combined games in 2021 and 2022, then went 1-12 under Gino Maribella in 2023.
Enter Vargas, and New Brunswick added six more wins in Vargas’ first season, 2024, then went 15-3 last year en route to winning the Ray Cipperly GMC Invitational Tournament over East Brunswick Magnet.
The two rematched Monday, with the Tigers picking up a lopsided win, 17-4, and will play the second of the home-and-home Tuesday afternoon at 4 pm in East Brunswick, in a game you can hear live on Central Jersey Sports Radio. Mike Pavlichko and Nick Hart have the call with pregame at 3:45; click here to listen.
It’s those four runs from Monday’s game that Vargas is focused on, for a number of reasons.
Trailing 13-0 after four-and-a-half innings of play, the Zebras could have packed it in. Instead, they loaded the bases for one of their veterans, Jose Abreu, and all he did was hit a grand slam to extend the game at least one more inning.
Nevermind that East Brunswick Magnet got those four back in the top of the sixth, and won it by blanking the Zebras in the bottom of the inning. At this point, accentuate the positive, and hope the old adage that “hitting is contagious” holds true Tuesday afternoon.
It’ll help they’ll have the outstanding Jacob Henderson on the mound. He held Piscataway last week through five innings, taking a 2-1 lead into the sixth. A bloop, a walk and a home run opened the floodgates, and the Zebras took a 5-2 decision, but still, it was something off which New Brunswick can build.
Click below to hear New Brunswick baseball coach Nico Vargas talk with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko about the 2026 season, and Tuesday’s matchup at East Brunswick Magnet:
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