Once tournament time comes, teams want to be playing their best baseball. That’s certainly the case for South Plainfield.
The Tigers came on like a thoroughbred, wasting defending Central Jersey Group 4 champion Old Bridge and defending GMC Tournament champion St. Joseph-Metuchen in the final two weeks before the seeding meeting to take first place in the league’s Red Division, and, by extension, the top-seed in the tourney.
South Brunswick, meanwhile, may be running on adrenaline, after a nearly four-hour first-round game Monday, a 3-2 win in 14 innings over ninth-seed St. Thomas Aquinas at Rowland Park. They’re on a five-game winning streak.
The top-seeded Tigers (16-3) and eighth-seeded Vikings (11-10) will square off at 7 pm Wednesday at North Brunswick Community Park in one of the final two GMCT quarterfinal games, and you can hear the game live on Central Jersey Sports Radio, immediately following the 4 pm quarterfinal.
Mike Pavlichko and Dom Savino will call all the action; click here to listen.
South Plainfield is a gritty bunch. Always has been, always will be. When they won their first and only GMC Tournament title in 2018, under head coach Anthony Guida, they got to the finals as a 14-seed, and beat 12th-seed Perth Amboy 2-1. That nearly erased the heartbreak they suffered in 2014, when – as the six seed – they lost to four-seed St. Joe’s 1-0 on a bases-loaded walk-off walk.
South Brunswick, meanwhile, last won in 2010, though they were in two straight finals in 2019 and 2021 – there was no season in 2020 due to COVID-19 – losing the first time to Old Bridge, the second time to St. Joe’s.
The Tigers will send senior Aldo Pigna to the hill Wednesday night. He’s 4-0 in the season with a 3.65 ERA, with South Plainfield winning all five of his starts. And he’s gotten a ton of run support, with no fewer than five in any of his starts, twice scoring more than ten runs.
South Brunswick was hoping to throw junior John Koch (2-3, 3.74 ERA) but he had to go in Monday’s marathon against Aquinas. He threw 64 pitches in 4 1/3 innings and got the win in relief when Jack Leach won it in with an RBI single in the bottom of the 14th in walk-off fashion, but that means he’s unavailable Wednesday.
The good thing for first-year head coach Mike Pallitto is he only used three pitchers in the game, but neither of the other two – seniors Ethan Fantel or Aaron Perna – are available either. So, he’ll put the ball in the hands of Will Haman, who’s 1-0 with a 2.40 ERA. He’s had two starts and two relief appearances; the Vikings won both starts and split the two games he came into out of the ‘pen.
The Tigers took the second game of that home-and-home as well, winning 8-6 on April 11th. But with the two games being decided by a total of three combined runs, expect another close one. The question is, if Perna gets in trouble, will South Brunswick have enough arms in the bullpen?
Old Bridge had a three-game skid in late April, dropping a home-and-home to South Plainfield that ended up costing them the GMC Red title, but they rebounded to win three straight heading into Monday’s win over the Falcons in the GMCT first round.
And there was no rest for South Brunswick on Tuesday, which had a GMC crossover game scheduled with Perth Amboy. They beat the Panthers at home 11-3 and got a four-inning effort from Atticus Solomons.
South Plainfield and South Brunswick have the two most prolific offenses in the GMC Red Division. The Tigers have scored 145 runs in 19 games, while South Brunswick has scored 127 in 21 contests.
The Tigers are hitting .331 as a team, led by two regulars hitting over .400 on the year. Senior shortstop Zack Robinson – a speedster – is hitting .467 with 21 RBIs, three triples and three home runs – all team highs – while junior Dan Kapsch is hitting .424 with 9 runs batted in. As a team, South Plainfield has belted nine homers. Senior Jayden Alvarez has 20 RBIs and a team-leading seven doubles.
The Vikings – while they score a lot of runs – are hitting just .257 on the year, but they’ve hit eight home runs. Colin Perna leads the team with four and has 11 runs batted in, while senior Jack Leach leads the team with 17 RBIs, hitting .312 on the year. Ethan Fantel – back in the lineup the last couple of weeks – has been big upon his return from injury, hitting .529 in 17 at bats since his return to the lineup just five days ago. The Ithaca College-bound senior was hit by a line drive in South Brunswick’s season opener April fourth against East Brunswick, an 11-10 win. He broke several orbital bones in his face, and missed nearly a full month of the season.
Click below to hear from both head coaches:
