Sports
Dodgers Seek First-Ever Berth in Baseball Sectional Championship
Meet top seed Hackettstown today.
It’s been an impressive spring for the baseball team, which has fashioned the first 20-win season in school history on the way to today's appearance in the NJSIAA North 2 Group 2 playoff semi-finals at 4 p.m. at Hackettstown.
A win would vault the Dodgers into their first-ever sectional baseball title game.
Hackettstown took care of Garfield, 12-2, in the quarterfinals on Friday, and has cruised to a 19-1 record thanks to a 1.48 team ERA and a team batting average over .500.
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Led by Adam Young, Mark Feci and Matt Reynolds, who together have collected more than 60 hits and knocked in better than 30 runs, Hackettstown presents the biggest challenge of the season for this Madison group.
The fourth-seeded Dodgers have won six of their last seven, most recently a 1-0 win over No. 5 Rutherford at home on Friday.
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Head coach Mickey Ennis, who took over the Madison program two years ago, knows that while Hackettstown is a dangerous club capable of putting a game out of reach very quickly, he believes that the senior-laden Dodgers have the strength of a tougher regular season schedule giving them the advantage in this one.
“[Hackettstown is] a top team in the state,” Ennis said after Friday’s 1-0 win over Rutherford. "They really crush the ball, but they haven’t played the competition that we have.”
With either Connor Allen or Connor Higgins taking the ball for Madison—Ennis on Friday said he was leaning towards Allen—and with what Ennis described as “secret weapon” Mike Haughey available for a relief appearance, the Dodgers are confident that they can quiet the Hackettstown bats.
At the plate, Madison boasts power, consistency and speed with a starting lineup of Allen, Tom Tracy, Jake Meister and Mike Haughey, along with Higgins, Dilan Kluge, Alex Brownlee, Cameron Dias and Jamie Hunter averaging seven runs per game.
A victory would send the Dodgers to the North 2, Group 2 championship game, scheduled for June 3 against the winner of Lyndhurst-West Essex.
