Second-ranked Immaculata got three late runs – one in each of the final three innings – and a combined one-hitter from starting pitcher Cole Raymond and reliever Bryson Auten to beat No. 8 Hillsborough on the road on Opening Day 2026, 3-0.
Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel call all the play-by-play live from Hillsbrough High School on March 31, 2026.
Ryan Auten is the senior pitcher heading to Wake Forest, but it was his freshman brother, Bryson, who got the win Tuesday on Opening Day for Immaculata.
Cole Raymond made his first start, after coming out of the bullpen last season, and went 3 1/3 innings without allowing a hit or a run, and just three baserunners. But Bryson Auten got out of a two-on, one-out jam in the fourth out of the ‘pen, then finished things off for a 3-0 win for No. 2 Immaculata at No. 8 Hillsborough on Opening Day, in a game heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio.
Bryson got the win – as the game was scoreless when he entered – thtrowing 3 2/3 innings, allowing just one hit, striking out six.
Early-season baseball in the Northeast is hardly pretty, but with a game-time temprature of 81 degrees, and a solid breeze that turned into a gusty wind from time-time-time, it was more like early May baseball, and the play reflected it, with both starting pitchers having good control.
Raymond struck out five and walked two, while Hillsborough starter Shane Borer – who barely threw more than six innings all year last year – went 5 2/3 innings, allowing just two earned rund on four hits, walking one and striking out five.
And the defense was solid, too, even though Immaculata was charged with two tough errors, neither of which came back to bite them.
Scoreless into the fifth, Immaculata got a run in each of the last three innings. In the fifth, No. 7 hitter Connor Quinn reached on a one-out double down thwe left field line. Owen Rivernbark walked, and Quinn moved to third on a 5-4 fielder’s choice, then came home on a wild pitch to leadoff hitter Luca Catanzarite.
In the sixth, Immaculata picked up another run on an RBI single up the middle by Brian Cilento, who drove in Nehemiah Diaz from third. He’d reached on a single, and stole second and third during Cilento’s at bat to earn him an easy trot home.
Then, in the seventh, the Spartans got one more for insurance. Quinn singled to lead off the inning, advanced to second on a wild pitch, and later stole third. After Rivenbark walked, Gino Spigarelli grounded into a 4-6-3 double play to bring in Quinn with his second run scored of the game.
Hillsborough threatened in the fourth, getting runners on second and third, but ‘Lata brought in Bryson Auten to get out of the jam, and he did just that in his first high school pitching appearance, getting Samuel Malone to fly out to right, and Matt Battoglia to strike out looking to end the inning.
They had another chance in the fifth, with Anthony Guerrero reaching on a one-out walk, and evenutally advancing to third on a couple of wild pitches by Auten, but the freshman wound up striking out the side to escape unscathed.
Hillsborough (0-1) faces Montgomery Wednesday before visiting Immaculata (1-0) – which is off Wednesday – to finish the two-game set out at Dimaond Nation.
Click below to hear postgame reaction from Alec Crouthamel with Immaculata head coach Kevin Cust, pitcheer Bryson Auten and first baseman Conor Quinn, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:
The South Brunswick baseball program isn’t that far removed from a trip to the GMC Tournament finals in 2021, and yet they are.
There’s been a decline in participation, and last season the Vikings won just four games.
Enter Lou Urbano, a Greater Middlesex Conference baseball veteran, who made his name in the northern end of the county, coaching at JFK in the 1980s, Woodbridge and Colonia in the 90s, and St. Joseph-Metuchen into the new century, before going back to Barrons.
Now, he’s at South Brunswick, with his first goal to change the culture, his second to increase the numbers in the program. Do those two things, Urbano says, and the third goal – winning – will take care of itself.
Urbano knows a thing or two about winning. And so do his former players. That’s why one of his first moves was to bring in one of his former players at Woodbridge, Harry Rutkowski, one of the GMC’s all-time greats, who played his college ball at Rutgers.
There’s a lot to do for Urbano, who’s also a football coach, and plans to remain on the staff of Brian Russo at Rahway – yet another Woodbridge connection.
Much of the pitching staff remains, with a number of sophomores and juniors back, including Jack Whitlock and Tyler Skakacs, who combined to throw 40 innings last season.
Their top hitter is Collin Perna, a junior who hit an eye-popping .446 last season with six home runs and 16 runs batted in, for a lineup that struggled to hit .216 last season, and scored just 59 runs.
And moving “down” to the White Division this year won’t necessarily be a cakewalk, but should give the Vikings a bit more breathing room. Yet, they’ll still have to face two of the league’s three 20-game winners from a year ago in Middlesex and Colonia, as well as scrappy Spotswood, the only team to beat the Blue Jays twice last season.
The Vikings open the season Tuesday afternoon at 4:30 with the first of a two-game, home-and-home set with Perth Amboy. They’ll visit the Bay City for Game Two Thursday afternoon, also at 4:30.
Click below to hear Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko talk with new South Brunswick baseball coach Lou Urbano
This time of year, high school baseball teams throughout New Jersey are figuring out who will replace their graduated seniors for the upcoming season. Maybe a pitcher or two here, or a hitter or two there.
South Plainfield will have to face more than most.
Getting some measure of redemption after a tough, late-inning loss to Ramapo in the North 2, Group 3 finals in 2024, the Tigers took the title last season, beating Colonia in the final, with a veteran group.
Now, much of that core is gone.
Of their top four pitchers by innings thrown, three are gone – Kevin Penny, Mike Castagna, and Ryan Balent – while Aiden McCarthy (1.34 ERA in 52 1/2 innings pitched) and Jayden Jiminez (2.29 ERA, 18 1/3 IP) are back.
On defensive alignment, head coach Scott Gleichenhaus will have to replace catcher Steve Studlack, as well as his middle infield combo of shortstop Dan Kapsch (.323, 24 RBI) and second baseman Nick Irizzary (.3878. 17 RBI). His corner infielders, David Butrico in left, Balent in right) are also gone.
Then again, with a real blue collar group, some is bound to step up. McCarthy will be in the lineup everyday at first base if he’s not on the mount, and he hit .297 last year with 25 RBIs to led the team.
And the Tigers also will look to senior Dom Massaro for major contributions and leadership. Massaro, CJSR’s Special Teams Returner of the Year in football, hit .394 last year – best among the regulars – knocked in 20 runs and stole 38 bases, good for No. 2 on the team last season.
Click below to hear South Plainfield head coach Scott Gleichenhaus talk about the Tigers’ upcoming 2026 season with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:
Every year, graduation forces a number of high school baseball coaches to search for a new No. 1, or even a No. 2 or No. 3 pitcher. Or maybe even a great bullpen guy.
That’s one problem, on the whole, Edison baseball coach Vinnie Abene won’t have in 2026.
The Eagles did not have a single senior take the mound last year, but they’ll have three on the bump this season who will play for D1 schools when they’re all done wearing red and gold.
Righty Dom Innocenti and lefty Robert Roma will head to Staten Island to play for Wagner, while Connor Muprhy will head to Monmouth.
Enjoy ’em while you can.
The trio combined for more than half the innings thrown by last year’s team, and none had an ERA over three.
Innocenti (.390, 21 RBI, 3 HR) and Roma (.390, 22 RBI, 1 HR) also are the top hitters in the lineup, and a good chunk of the rest are back, too, including second baseman Ray Tavarez (.263, 7 RBI, 2 triples).
The Eagles made the GMC Jim Muldowney Championship Tournament final last season, falling to St. Joseph-Metuchen. And while getting back there is never a guarantee – after all, the Falcons were a five-seed – the GMC Red does certainly make a team battle-tested.
Click below to hear Edison baseball coach Vinnie Abene talk about the Eagle’s upcoming 2026 season:
Sometimes, the cyclical nature of public school high school sports is more powerful than any coaching or skill level can overcome.
That was the case in 2025 for the Bridgewater-Raritan baseball team, which was dominant en route to winning the state Group 4 title the year prior with a veteran group that had played together for years.
But so many key players graduated from that squad, and that – coupled with a ton of close losses and some injuries – resulted in a 7-18 campaign in last season, after going 30-3 in 2024.
Gone were big hitters like Matt Fattore, Michael Taylor and Frankie Verano, along with closer Corey Rible, who allowed just just six runs all season over four games out of a total 17 appearances, never taking a loss.
And then, there was the hard luck. The 2025 opener turned out to be a microcosm of things to come. They had their chances against Immaculata at Diamond Nation, but lost 2-1 in a 13-inning game that took over four hours. It was their first of 13 losses – out of a total of 18 – that came by three runs or less. Nine came by two or less, and five were by a single run.
It’s a fine line.
But head coach Max Newill is looking forward to the 2026 season. On the mound, he’ll get back Kellan Komline for his senior season, after throwing 41 innings last year, going 3-1 with a 0.68 earned run average.
At the plate, the Panthers will miss a JR Rosado and a Matthew Lehberger, among others, but Newill trusts there’s enough talent – with another year under their belts – to make an impact in the rough-and-tumble Skyland Conference Delaware Division.
Click below to hear Bridgewater-Raritan baseball coach Max Newill talk about the Panthers’ upcoming 2026 season:
You could look all the way back to the mid-80s, and the formation of the Greater Middlesex Conference, but it would be impossible to find a more thrilling run to the GMC Tournament title than St. Joseph-Metuchen had in 2025.
They were the five-seed, and won all four of their games in the tournament in their final at bat. Their lineup never faced a single pitch in the entire run while ahead in the game. And then won it on a walk-off grand slam by senior JP Zayle.
But there’s still more to do for the Falcons: win the GMC Red Division title, and win a sectional and state championship.
All those goals – plus the GMC Tournament – are on the table again for a St. Joe’s squad that will be playing its second year under veteran mentor Dennis McCaffery. He came in after spending nearly 30 years at Cranford, but there, he had elementary schools, middle schools and little league in town where he knew all the kids.
Last season was an exercise in getting to meet and learn about them all.
Now, he jumps in with a group he’s been around for more than a year.
Connor Walker is one of the top senior pitchers back – he only threw 12 innings last year – but there will be some younger arms McCaffery hopes will make an impact, whether they only got a handful of innings on varsity, pitched more on the jayvee squad, or are incoming freshmen.
With the weather in the Northeast during preseason camp, getting even a veteran staff ready to go outdoors often takes a while, sometimes a few weeks into the season.
Which leads us to the offense – which will lose guys like Zayle and Bobby Christensen, also middle infielders – but McCaffery likes having a half-dozen starters back, including left fielder Walter Christian (.333), centerfielder Kris Almanzar (.362), first-baseman Logan Ring (.300, 9 RBI), and third-baseman Owen Krulikowski (305).
Click below to hear St. Joseph-Metuchen head coach Dennis McCaffery talk about the upcoming season for the Falcons with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:
Aidan Stieglitz is a special ballplayer. The starter dominated for Ridge last season, going 9-3 in 13 appearances with a 0.77 ERA and 99 strikeouts, and was named the Central Jersey Sports Radio Somerset County Player of the Year.
You don’t just replace a player like that.
But there are enough returnees for the Red Devils that head coach Tom Blackwell is confident his team can be right back in the thick of things this season, even if last year fell just a little bit short.
In 2025, Ridge shared the Skyland Conference Delaware Division title with Immaculata, lost to the Spartans in the Somerset County Tournament title game, and reached the North 2, Group 4 finals, where they lost to Westfield.
Oh, so close, on all three goals for the season. Just missed them.
Now is a chance to make it payoff.
The pitching staff may not exactly be starter by committee, but it might be high school baseball’s version of money ball: using a few different guys – Lucas Liston, Jake Dolan, Casey Kucerka, Dmitri Romer, Andy Yuan – all to get more innings, and maybe combine their production to get what they got last year for Stieglitz.
And hey, with pitch count limits, maybe spreading the pain among opponents will work out even better?
Ridge will enter the season with the No. 3 ranking in the Bellamy & Son Paving Top Ten – right behind GMC Tournament champion St. Joseph-Metuchen and Immaculata … and part of the reason why is the offense.
The heaviest hitters in the lineup return, with seniors like Jake Dolan (.429, 25 RBI, 3 HR), Toby Nicholson (.296, 8 RBI) and Dan Rafanello (.417) and the junior Kucerka (.258, 15 RBI) are back, and others will move in and fill in any gaps.
No doubt all hands will need to be on deck. The Spartans aren’t going anywhere, Bridgewater-Raritan is looking at a bounceback year, Hillsborough is coming off a sectional title, and that’s just the Delaware Division.
Ridge was Somerset County’s only team to win 20 ore more games last season, but with a few more this year, they may have to slide over some of that hardware in the trophy case to make room for more.
Click below to hear Ridge baseball coach Tom Blackwell talk about the Red Devils’ upcoming 2026 season with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:
It’s never easy to predict how any high school team – in any sport – will do from year-to-year, what with graduation losses and unproven talent. The year before can be a guide, but who knows who a new group will respond, or if a new coach will reignite a program that struggled the year prior.
That said, it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish, and last year’s teams will mainly get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the preseason Bellamy & Son Paving High School Basketball rankings.
Defending GMC Jim Muldowney Tournament Champion St. Joseph-Metuchen will begin the year at No. 1. Though the Falcons (16-7) lose a ton of pitching – more than 134 out of 161 innings pitched by Joseph Barca, Richard Zangara and Domenic Erbafina – the bats may be able to carry them until second-year veteran skipper Dennis McCaffery sees what his young pitching staff has. The Falcons won the GMCT last year as a five seed, taking all four games in their final at bat, and they never led for a single at bat in the entire run.
Last year’s Somerset County Tournament champion holds in second place, Immaculata. At 17-8, they were also Skyland Conference Delaware Division co-champions with Ridge, and they’ll bring back a good amount of pitching. While they lose Rob Sikorski to graduation, their top two pitchers in terms of innings thrown – Jackson Trego and Ryan Auten, both seniors – return.
Ridge checks in at No. 3. Going 20-7 a year ago, the Red Devils lose ace Aidan Stieglitz but have a good chunk of returnees that should keep the Red Devils right in the thick of things, a year after sharing the Skyland Conference Delaware Division title with Immaculata, and reaching both the Somerset County Tournament and NJSIAA North 2, Group 4 finals.
The only Central Jersey Sports Radio-area team to win a state title last year, Middlesex begins the year at No. 4. The Blue Jays (23-5) were a GMC Tournament final four squad, and beat Midland Park to win the NJSIAA Group 1 title, their first since 2021. They bring back all but ten of their 193 innings pitched last year, led by senior Chris Kozak and junior Dominic Long.
Checking in at No. 5 is Edison, which is overflowing with quality pitching. The GMC Tournament runner-up Eagles (17-11) have four Division 1 commits. Pitchers Robert Roma and Dom Innocenti are set with Wagner, while Connor Muprhy is going to Monmouth.
No. 6 is Colonia, which went 23-5 a season ago, falling to South Plainfield in the North 2, Group 3 sectional title game. While Seton Hall-bound Colin Kroner returns to the mound, starter Cory Pascarella is gone to graduation and now playing at Monmouth, as is Matt Fasulo (.289, 19 RBI) at Rutgers-Newark.
At No. 7 is South Plainfield, which took some big graduation losses, including the middle of the infield (Dan Kapsch at short, Nick Irizarry at second). And of four pitchers for the North 2 Group 3 champion Tigers (18-11) who threw at least 15 innings last year and pitchers Kevin Penny, Aiden McCarthy and Mike Castagna are gone, more than three quarters’ of last season’s innings pitched.
Checking in at eight is Hillsborough. The defending Central Jrsey Group 4 champs were 14-11 last season, but lose a ton, including pitchers James Drinkwater, Brayden Fox (also an outfielder) and Krish Patel, as well as hitters like Andrew Advani and catcher Alex Reiling, among others.
In ninth is Old Bridge. The Knights were 18-11 last year as well, and made the Central Jersey Group 4 finals, falling to Hillsborough. They lose two aces in Justin Hascup and John Smith, with Brady Meyer the most experienced pitcher coming back. The lineup may have fewer question marks, but head coach Matt Donaghue always has a deep roster, it’s just a matter of experience.
And checking in at ten, it’s Woodbridge. the Barrons were 18-8 last year and GMC Red Division champs. They’ll take a hit losing pitcher Ryan Leach to graduation, but Kevin Arroyo returns after throwing 63 1/2 innings a year ago, with a 1.11 ERA and 62 strikeouts.
Below is the complete Bellamy & Son Paving 2026 Baseball Preseason Top Ten:
With a dozen regular season games, plus coverage of the GMC and Somerset County Tournaments – as well as state tournament coverage to be announced at a later date – Central Jersey Sports Radio has announced its 2026 high school baseball broadcast schedule.
It all gets started next week, with our opener on Tuesday, March 31 at 4 pm between defending 2025 SCT champion Immaculata and NJSIAA Central Jersey Group 4 winner Hillsborough. Then, after the calendar turns to April mid-week, we get state Group 1 champion Middlesex visiting Spotswood, on Thursday, April 2.
Coverage also includes two regular season games at TD Bank Park in Bridgewater – Montgomery vs Pingry on April 11, and Rutgers Prep against South Plainfield two Saturdays later – as well as the semifinals and finals of the Somerset County Tournament on April 18th and 20th, respectively.
The schedule includes three of last year’s SCT semifinalists, and all four of 2025’s GMC Tournament semifinalists, including a rematch of the title game between Edison and St. Joseph-Metuchen, and a rematch on the Invitational final between New Brunswick and East Brunswick Magnet.
Last year’s North 2, Group 3 winner South Plainfield also is on the schedule, as well as finalist Colonia.