Tag: HS Softball

by Mike Pavlichko

Zoned Sports Academy in Bridgewater sends dozens off to college baseball and softball; trained three baseball champs in 2024, and New Jersey’s current No. 1 baseball team

SPONSORED CONTENT – Every year, when the weather turns cold, the real work begins at Zoned Sports Academy.

What’s the old saying? That football games aren’t won on Sundays – they’re won during the week?

If practice makes perfect, there will be some pretty good high school baseball and softball teams coming out of the doors of Zoned Sports Academy in Bridgewater, once the weather gets nice.

But in the winter? It’s time to hunker down in their 28,000 square foot facility, and get back to basics. While many kids want to pitch and throw through a brick wall, founder and owner Duke Baxter has other ideas: teach the fundamentals, the basics, the mechanics. All of that makes pitchers, for example, more efficient, and less injury prone.

Same thing for hitting. Sure, you can be strong and swing a good bat, but mechanics, stance – those are all part of the equation, too, and when they’re overlooked, the results won’t be pretty. That’s where a place like Zoned Sports Academy comes in.

Baxter and his staff will work with teams as a group, and individually, catering training sessions to individual needs. One kid has a hitch in his swing, the other isn’t positioned right coming off the mound? They’ll work on that.

Baxter has kept up with the times over the years, continually adding new programs and technology at Zoned Sports Academy. That included virtual instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, and two years ago, he instituted a new strength training program.

Duke Baxter and his staff offer one-on-one instruction in baseball and softball at Zoned Sports Academy in Bridgewater.

Last season, it all paid off on the field. There’s Bridgewater-Raritan, of course, which swept to a Skyland Conference Delaware Division title, Somerset County title, and the North 2 Group 4 and overall Group 4 state championship. The Hun School won the Mercer County Tournament and the state Prep A Tournament. And Governor Livingston won the Union County Tournament, Central Jersey Group 2 and the overall state Group 2 title.

Oh, and by the way, the Highlanders are just 22-0 this season, and the No. 1 ranked team in the state, having won 27 straight going back to last season!

On the softball side, Zoned trains a dozen or so schools, including Pingry, which reached this year’s Somerset County Tournament semifinals, and Watchung Hills, which played in last week’s county championship.

Click below to hear Mike Pavlichko talk with Duke Baxter, founder and owner of Zoned Sports Academy in Bridgewater:

Click the logo below to learn more about training for baseball – or softball – at Zoned Sports Academy in Bridgewater… where an athlete has to be to succeed! Reach them at 732-537-1770!

by Mike Pavlichko

GMC Finals Notebook: Milestones and broken trends – plus a dominant softball win for South Plainfield on a historic day – wrap the ’24 tourney

The 2024 GMC Tournament baseball final was different in many ways from the past several years, but also the same.

It was the first time in over a decade the teams in the finals had combined for more than six runs in a game, with third-seed Old Bridge knocking off top-seed South Plainfield 6-5 Saturday afternoon under a light but persistent drizzle at Ray Cipperly Field in East Brunswick.

But it was also the eleventh straight GMC final in which the game was decided by just one or two runs. The last game decided by more than two runs was also the last one where the teams combined for more than six runs in a game. That was the 2012 final, where Middlesex beat Sayreville 10-4.

Speaking of runs…

From 1986 to 2013, the GMC Finals averaged a combined 8.7 runs between the two teams. From 2014 through 2013, that number was 2.1 runs per game. That included four straight 1-0 games from 2013 to 2016, then a pair of 2-1 games leading into the COVID pause. The last three years all saw two-run games, including a pair of 2-0 wins by St. Joseph, with a 4-2 win by North Brunswick in between.

Old Bridge wins its third title…

Saturday’s victory puts Old Bridge all alone in third place for most GMC titles.

Edison and St. Joseph-Metuchen have won eight each, while East Brunswick has won five.

The Knights now are have the third-most titles with three. South Brunswick is the only other GMC school that has won multiple titles; the Vikings have three.

Eleven other schools – including South Plainfield – have one title to their credit.

Old Bridge is now 3-1 all-time in finals, winning other championships in 2019 and 2011, with their only loss coming in 2008. South Plainfield made the finals in 1990 and 1991, 2011, and 2014, dropping all four games, finally winning in 2019 as the 14th-seed, the second lowest ever to win it. Woodbridge took the 2000 GMC crown as a 17-seed.

Donaghue wins No. 100…

The victory for Old Bridge was the 100th under head coach Matt Donaghue, now in his 6th season as Old Bridge head coach.

He started off with a 12-17 season in 2018, then went 23-17 his second year, winning the GMC Tournament over South Brunswick in 2019. They also went to the Central Jersey Group 4 final that year, falling to Manalapan.

After COVID, the Knights were just 9-18 in 2021 before rebounding to the tune of a 17-12 season in 2022. Last year, the Knights went 21-9, getting knocked in in the GMC Tournament quarterfinals by South Plainfield, before coming back to win the Central Jersey Group 4 final, going all the way to the state final in Hamilton before falling to Eastern.

Old Bridge players hold the Central Jersey Group 4 championship trophy high after beating North Brunswick to win the title at Fred Cole Field on June 2, 2023. (Photo: Dylan Allen)

Donaghue – a former assistant and JV coach under Glenny Fredricks at Spotswood – is now a nice, clean 100-70 in his six seasons with Old Bridge.

To read more on Donaghue’s 100th win and hear our interview with him after Saturday’s game, click here.

No top-seed has won since COVID…

The last three GMC finals have seen the top seed lose. Besides this year, in 2022, six-seed North Brunswick beat top-seed St. Joe’s 4-2. The Falcons came back the next year as the three-seed with the roles reversed, knocking off the top-seeded Raiders 2-0.

The top-seed failed to make the finals in 2021, the first tournament after the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of the 2020 baseball season.

The last top seed to win it was Old Bridge, in 2019, when they beat third-seed South Brunswick, 2-0.

No same school sweep…

This is the first time in the history of the Greater Middlesex Conference the same schools have competed for the softball and baseball championships in the same weekend. But the same teams didn’t win. The South Plainfield softball team beat Old Bridge 10-0, but the Knights’ baseball squad won in baseball.

In the 38 years of GMC tournaments, only twice before has the same school won the baseball and softball titles in the same year.

In 1993, Edison’s baseball team beat JFK 12-3, while the Eagle softball team topped JP Stevens 7-1. Three years later, Bishop Ahr won the softball title 2-1 over Piscataway, while the Trojan baseball team got by Edison 4-3 in 13 innings.

No school has done it since.

But how ’bout those Lady Tigers?

South Plainfield’s softball team became the first public school to win the GMC title since South Brunswick did it in 2017. Bishop Ahr won in 2018 and 2019, then as St. Thomas Aquinas won it the last three years since COVID.

South Plainfield won the GMC Tournament in softball, beating South Plainfield 10-0 in the finals at Woodbridge High School on May 18, 2024. (Photo courtesy GMC Conference)

Senior Lindsay Oller – a Caldwell commit – was the star in a 10-0 win over Old Bridge Saturday in the final, which was played at Woodbridge High School. She went 3-for-4 with five runs batted in and two home runs. Senior Kelsey Geurts also knocked in two runs on a 3-for-4 day. Junior Erin Townley hurled a one-hit shutout, striking out three, while walking three.

Scoring, but…

Considering the way runs have been at a premium the last decade in the GMC final, one would thing five runs was enough to win it all. But it wasn’t on Saturday for South Plainfield.

The most runs ever scored by a losing team in the GMC Finals was seven; Cedar Ridge did it in the 1989 title game, in an 8-7 extra inning loss. JP Steven scored six in a 7-6 loss to Spotswood in 2007. South Brunswick and East Brunswick each scored five in 2003 and 1991, respectively, and the Tigers did it again this year in defeat, falling 6-5 to Old Bridge.

His final final…

After a nearly 50-year career calling high school baseball, and nearly 60 years overall, Saturday’s GMC baseball title game was the last for Bill Kilduff, who’s retiring after this season.

Umpire Bill Kilduff before his last GMC Tournament final, one of more than 30 he’s called in a nearly 50-year career. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)

He still has more games ahead, as he’ll umpire the state tournament this year, and plans to remain plenty active in “retirement.” He’s still an assistant basketball coach at Kean University under Dave Turco, and will stay on as the GMC’s assignor, determining which games umpires will cover.

If you missed our profile on him complete with a wide-ranging interview about how he got started, and some of the more interesting games he recalls, click here.