Ben Donaghy leaves North Plainfield to helm Red Devils baseball

When Tom Blackwell stepped down, retiring as Ridge baseball coach at the end of the Spring – going out as North 2, Group 4 state sectional champions – it was more than just the loss of a coach, but of a Red Devil alum who played for the late, great Pete Hall.

His replacement doesn’t fall far from the Ridge tree.

The Board of Education has approved the hire of Ben Donaghy – who spent the last year as head coach at North Plainfield – to take over the program.

Donaghy has more than two decades in coaching under his belt. Before leading the Canucks, he was the head coach at South Hunterdon for two seasons, going 27-21, and he took a North Plainfield program that hadn’t had a double-digit win season in nearly a decade until the year before he arrived – when they went 14-8 – improving them to 18-9, with a playoff win over Matawan in the first round of the state tournament in North 2, Group 3. It was the program’s first state tourney victory since 2011.

But Prior to becoming a head coach, he was Blackwell’s JV coach for three years with the Red Devils, and also coached football. He was the head freshman football coach for four seasons and a varsity assistant, all making him well-connected to the Ridge community.

But the move back to Ridge is a big step up, where the program missed the Somerset County Tournament final in a very competitive field for the first time since 2018, with that five-season streak the second-most all-time since the SCT began play in 1973. The Red Devils also are second all-time in Somerset County titles with seven – only behind Immaculata and their 15 – with its most recent trophy coming in 2022 over Rutgers Prep.

While coaching elsewhere, Donaghy worked at Ridge High School, and still does. He’s a Transition Coordinator, Work-Based Learning Supervisor and a Special Education teacher, working with students with autism and diverse learning needs, including community-based instruction and competitive work-based learning experiences.

Collegiately, Donaghy was a three-year starter at Felician University up in Rutherford, where he was Team MVP his senior year of 2003 and named Team MVP with a .324 batting average, also earning accolades as a Division II All-Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference pick.

Please check back later this evening for a one-on-one interview with Coach Donaghy.