Baseball Team Has Championship Fever

Two of the most storied baseball programs in the state will take the field this afternoon in a quest for the coveted Union County Championship, when third-seeded Cranford faces top-seeded Westfield for the title at Williams Field in Elizabeth at 2:00 p.m.

The Cougars, who last took home the trophy in 2007, have a little payback on their agenda after having been eliminated by Westfield in the semifinal round the last two years. This would be the perfect time to turn the tables, but 12^th-year head coach Dennis McCaffery knows the challenge his team faces.

"They've been in the county finals twenty years," McCaffery noted. "They have an outstanding program. The kids are very talented, and we know we're going to have our hands full. They swing the bats well. They have a good pitcher we're going to be facing, so it's going to be a very difficult challenge for us this Saturday."

"It's been surprising," said catcher Marc Linger, who arguably has the best throwing arm in the county. "I thought our hitting would be our strength and our pitching weak, but it's been both. Our hitting has been very good, our pitching has been even better. Our season, I didn't expect at all. We may have beaten our expectations."

The Cougars have amassed a 19-5 record in big part because of their pitching, a deep and talented group, who throw strikes and keep runners off the bases. The guys with the arms always seem to be the bread-and-butter.

"Well it always comes down to pitching," said McCaffery. "Hopefully we'll throw the ball well, and hopefully we only give them three outs an inning, and then offensively, we want to make sure we have good at-bats when opportunities present themselves, to put runs across and take advantage of that."

And who gets the start in the big game? McCaffery will look to keep the Blue Devils guessing.

"We have it down to three. It's either Ryan Williamson, Pat Gilstrap or Nick Cook."

The Cougars, who clinched the conference championship earlier this week, advanced to the final with an exciting 10-7 come-from-behind effort versus Scotch Plains-Fanwood, beating last year's County Player of the Year, Gary Binkiewicz, in the process.

"I thought that we did beat a very good team," said McCaffery. "They're well-coached. Scotch Plains came in playing outstanding baseball. They had the Union County pitcher of the year who is a very competitive athlete, and had a really successful season last year. They have a very good team. We played from behind in the beginning of the game, but we had a number of people swing the bats well, and we were fortunate to win the game and put us in the finals."

"We were down 2-0 and we never really got off our guard," said Linger. "We really kept our guard up and got at 'em. We had one run there, one run here, we had a couple of mishaps, but we stayed together, we pieced together those hits and had a rally."

The Cougars, as they have all season, are playing great defense while doing the little things right offensively.

"I thought we did a nice job of situational hitting, we got ourselves into hitters' counts, and then took advantage of different pitches that he (Binkiewicz) threw that were good pitches to hit for us," McCaffery added. "We didn't miss too many pitches last Saturday and when we were able to put runs across, we did that."

The success has been a combination of veterans, like senior pitchers Pat Gilstrap and Nick Cook, to the rising freshman, including lefthanded pitcher Ryan Williamson, who shut the door in relief in the county semifinals.

Another freshman, Sean Feeney, has come through with clutch hitting and has proven quite a defensive talent at third base for the Cougars. He's just happy to be a part of something special.

"It's great, but I also want to keep in mind it's just another game and make sure that we get the win," Feeney said. "We've got all our pitchers, all our hitters. We'll give them what we can. As long as we continue to field the ball the way we have, it's one of the best fielding teams we've seen in awhile, and we can get our runners in, and the pitchers throw strikes. That's the key to it all. No walks. No errors. I'm happy with the way we've been playing and I hope it continues."

Junior Mark Osofsky, who belted a key home run, came through in the clutch against the Raiders, and was just a single away from hitting for the cycle in the semifinal game. Meanwhile, senior Rob Ghiretti has seen his bat come alive in the past several weeks. The second baseman had a clutch double against SP-F and looks for more of the same later this afternoon.

"I'm just staying confident," said Ghiretti. "I'm putting a good swing on every pitch and hitting the ball hard. I'm hitting off the tee, hitting in the morning, just practicing basically."

Ghiretti, who along with Nick Pace and Eric Walano, were key members of the soccer team that captured a county championship in the fall, would like nothing more than to beat Westfield again and raise another trophy.

"I hope to win two county championships this year," said Ghiretti. "I'm sure that doesn't happen a lot. So it's pretty special."

These Cougars have certainly earned the opportunity with their outstanding play all season long. Indeed, it should be a great game between two proud baseball programs.