Sports
Madison Wins Sectional Title
Higgins strong on the mound, retires 10 of final 12 batters on 'adrenaline' rush.
baseball team beat Bernards 5-2 Friday to capture the NJSIAA North 2, Group 2 title. The Dodgers took advantage of a fine pitching performance and some Bernards errors to take the title.
Madison advances to face Mahwah in the Group 2 semifinals on Tuesday.
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th Runs Hits Errors Bernards (21-8) 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 9 2 Madison (21-7) 0 3 0 2 0 0 - 5 9 1
IN SHORT
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Bernards started the game with a flurry, scoring a run and brought seven batters to the plate in the first innings. But Madison had a rally of their own in the second, scoring three runs on two walks and three singles with an infield error. Bernards added another run in the fourth inning, but it would not be enough as Madison added two more in the bottom of the inning.
Starting pitcher T.J. Locatelli took his first loss of the season (7-1) for Bernards. Connor Higgins (8-1) pitched a complete game for Madison and retired 10 of the last 12 Bernards batters.
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DODGER OF THE GAME
Connor Higgins—Higgins pitched a complete game for his eighth win of the season. Higgins shut down Bernards, retiring 10 of the last 12 batters.
"He had struggles through an inning, but we worked his way through them. He played in front of 8,000 people in the state championship football game against Summit. He is 'big time.' He is used to these types of performances. We felt we had the right guy on the mound. He's got another level. I have been around baseball a long time, great pitchers just have another level when things get tough."—Madison coach Mickey Ennis
COACH'S TAKE
"A terrific game. It went kinda the way we had expected. We didn't expect to score five runs off (T.J.) Locatelli. We had a simulated game yesterday and we won that game 6-2. And I was T.J. Locatelli throwing from about 30 feet away trying to throw change ups and breaking pitches. Funny thing was, we scored two runs on a error in yesterday's simulated game. We didn't know they had a third pitcher to shut us down and (Bernard's) Zack DeLeon did a terrific job."—Madison coach Mickey Ennis
THEY SAID IT
"It was just adenaline at the end of the game. That was all there was to it. I was getting tired, but the extra adreneline got me through it. This is great."—Madison pitcher Connor Higgins
UP NEXT—Madison will travel to Demerest Tuesday to face Mahwah for the Group 2 semifinal.
