When Mike Garlatti asked Barnegat head coach Dan McCoy about a decade ago if he’d bring his team all the way up from the Jersey Shore to play in the Autism Awareness Challenge, he “couldn’t say yes fast enough.”

At the time, a friend’s son, who went to school with his own son, had just been diagnosed with autism, and McCoy says he knew this would be a special and important event.

But the connection goes back deeper than that.

McCoy still calls Garlatti “Coach Mike.” That’s because he played for him in the 1990s when Garlatti – now a Colorado Rockies scout – was an assistant at Rutgers under the late Fred Hill.

So, really, the decision to hop on a bus and drive almost an hour-and-a-half up the Parkway and Route 18 was an easy one.

As for his team, they’re very young, and taking some lumps this year. The Bengals are 2-7, and just picked up their second win of the season Saturday afternoon, a 9-4 road victory at Middle Township.

Barnegat lost a lot to graduation from last year’s 12-14 team. McCoy has four freshmen in the starting lineup, but isn’t worried. They’re essentially baseball bodies, who have baseball minds he says will catch up in time.

Sunday, they play an Edison team that’s much improved over a season ago, 7-3 on the year, with a 1-0 win over JFK Friday matching their win total from a year ago when they were 7-17-1.

You can hear Sunday’s game against Barnegat at 1 pm, with pregame at 12:45, as part of a doubleheader in the Autism Awareness Challenge. Our first game will feature South River taking on Bernards at 10 am, with pregame at 9:45 am. Mike Pavlichko and Justin Sontupe will call the action; click here to listen.

Click below to hear Mike Pavlichko talk with Barnegat head coach Dan McCoy: