South Brunswick Gold Baseball Starts 2-1

With a lot of players in the program interested in continuing to play baseball past the school season, South Brunswick has three teams entered in the Greater Middlesex Coaches Summer Baseball League.

South Brunswick has two teams in the U-17 division and another playing U-16.

"It's a head start for guys," South Brunswick High School Manager Tim Sweeney noted. "For us, it's a good evaluation period."

Sweeney doesn't actually coach in the summer. Instead, that duty has fallen to assistant coaches CJ Hendricks and Ryan Webb. Paul Pietrefesa coaches the U-16 team.

Hendricks is the manager of the South Brunswick Gold team, which has started the season 2-1. Last year, Hendricks guided South Brunswick to the state championship in the summer.

"We're a little thinned out having three teams, but we're still solid," Hendricks noted. "We had a lot of kids in the program and coach Sweeney wanted to give everyone a chance to play."

The one group of players you will not see playing for South Brunswick in this league are the students that just graduated. As Sweeney noted, the league is largely instructional and is used to help get players prepared for high school baseball.

The South Brunswick Gold team has 15 players on the roster, 11 of which will be seniors in the fall.

The seniors to be are Kenny Drost (catcher), Sean Keenan (SS/P), Mike Diusto (P), Rory Monaghan (OF/P), Anthony Mastindino (OF), Chris Huber (OF), TJ Perkowski (OF/P), Brian Oates (utility), Jake Izzo (INF/OF), Nick Veglia (INF) and Tommy Fisher (OF).

The umcoming juniors are Dom Boccio (catcher), Ty Robinson (1B/P), Matt Cooney (1B/P) and Dylan Olsson (P/INF).

Hendricks is being assisted by Dan Olsson.

This group lost the season opener to Woodbridge on June 11, 6-1, but came back to win its next two games. The Woodbridge game was a repeat of last summer's state championship, won by South Brunswick.

The second game also had a revenge factor attached. Monroe ended South Brunswick's run in both the county and state tournaments during the school year. On June 18, South Brunswick won, 11-1. Olsson got the pitching win and Keenan and Veglia both had two hits.

"Guys got some sort of satisfaction with that win," Hendricks noted.

South Brunswick also defeated Middletown North, 13-12, on June 19th.

"We were losing 12-7 in the bottom of the seventh when we scored six runs," Hendricks noted.

A triple by Huber tied the game. He then scored on a wild pitch to win the contest.

South Brunswick is scheduled to play 15 games, which will be followed by a Middlesex Tournament. The winners of the Middlesex and Monmouth tournaments will then face each other to try and earn a spot in the state tournament.