Watching Hills – Central Jersey Sports Radio

There is certainly some heft to the four schools remaining in the Somerset County Tournament for baseball.

The semifinals are set to be played Monday afternoon, and you can hear both games on Central Jersey Sports Radio, with our coverage presented by Zoned Sports Academy in Bridgewater. Mike Pavlichko, Dom Savino and Vin Ebenau will be at TD Bank Park in Bridgewater, covering all the action.

Game One features second-seed Immaculata (14-6) against third-seed Ridge (18-7) at 1 pm, followed by top-seed Bridgewater-Raritan (21-3) taking on fourth-seed Watchung Hills (13-12) at 4:00. Pregame coverage begins at 12:45; Click here to listen.

Among those four teams, there’s a lot of history here.

Everyone is a game away from the finals. With the Somerset County Tournament starting in 1973 – and no tourney in 2020 or 2021 due to the COVID pandemic and the shorter regular season that followed – this will be the 50th running of the event.

Between them, they total 54 appearances in the SCT title game, out of a total 98 teams. Add three more each if you want to count Bridgewater East and Bridgewater-West, which merged to for the current school, and that’s 60 finals appearances, or 61 percent of all the previous finals spots occupied by these four teams.

Immaculata has made the most finals, with 22 all-time appearances. They won ten times in a 13-year span in which they made the title game all but one year – in 2003 – from 1996 thorugh 2008. Ridge has the second most finals appearances with 16, and is the only school to make the finals in all six decades (full or partial) in which it’s been played.

Watchung Hills is fourth all-time in appearances with 10, with a caveat. Bridgewater-Raritan – the merged version – has made four, but with Bridgewater East and Bridgewater West each making three, the combined high schools also muster ten finals appearances.

Title Leader…

Immaculata has won the most Somerset County titles in the 49-year history of the event, claiming 14 trophies in 22 trips to the finals. Ridge is second with seven titles, while Watchung Hills has five, but again, there’s that caveat. While Bridgewater-Raritan, on its own, has just one title, Bridgewater East won all its three trips, and West has a title, too, meaning those schools again tie Watchung Hills, this time with five titles each.