The New Brunswick baseball program had one title to its credit coming into Friday’s Ray Cipperly GMC Invitational Final against East Brunswick Magnet: the Central Jersey Group 1 pennant in 1986.
But other than that, they’d never been to a county final of any kind, not in the invitational – now in its sixth season – nor the main event,
But by 2:30 or so Friday afternoon, they had some more hardware to put in the trophy case..
The fifth-seeded Zebras used a three-run third inning and a strong start – after a shaky first – from Yeuri Garcia to beat second-seed East Brunswick Magnet 5-2, in a game heard live on Central Jersey Sports Radio, and videostreamed live on our YouTube channel.
The Zebras staked Garcia to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first, getting a two-RBI single by Ronaldy Peralta, who blooped a ball into no man’s land that fell to the red turf in short right field. But the Tigers got it right back in the bottom of the inning on a two-RBI double by Stephan Zoppolo.
After each team went out 1-2-3 in the second, New Brunswick would score the decisive run – and two more for insurance – in the third.
Kelvin Heuston led off with an infield hit, and after his older brother Devin struck out, DH Jacob Henderson laced a double to drive in what ultimately would be the winning run. Alex Rodriguez then reached on an E1, scoring another run, and a sac bunt by Peralta drove in Rodriguez to make it 5-2.
And Garcia, who had some control issues – he walked five, but also struck out five – settled in. He got in some jams, including a second and third situation with two out in the fifth, but got out of it.
He was pulled in the sixth with a 2-0 count on seven-hitter and opposing pitcher Anthony Bienvenue, but Henderson came in and needed just three pitches to strike him out, overpowering with a fastball that had more juice that what Garcia had been throwing for 6 2/3 innings.
And despite allowing two on in the seventh, he closed it out for the save.
New Brunswick improved to 15-2 with the win, while East Brunswick Magnet fell to 20-5. The two teams shared the Gold Division title this year, both 12-2 in the division.
The win went to Garcia, who’s now 4-1. Henderson got the save. Bienvenue took the loss for the Tigers to drop to 9-2.
Click below for postgame reaction with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:
