South Brunswick U-12 Gold wins Hopewell Tournament

Regardless of whether the team wins or loses the title game of the Montgomery Tournament on July 13, the South Brunswick Gold U-12 baseball squad should get a trophy.

Well, that's at least what they think.

"The kids want a trophy," South Brunswick Manager Glen Marchese said. "We'll get a trophy in Montgomery. Hopefully, it will be for first place."

Then again, South Brunswick has already finished first in one tournament and second in another, and it is still waiting for that trophy.

"We thought we would get a trophy for placing second in Bridgewater, but we got t-shirts," Manager Marchese laughed. "They were nice. The kids got to wear them, but they still wanted a trophy."

This is especially true because South Brunswick is a very good team. It made it to the playoffs in the Central Jersey Baseball League and the Branchburg Tournament. It was defeated in the semifinals in both events.

In the Hopewell Tournament, South Brunswick made sure it would get a trophy. It won all four of its games in one sided fashion -- 18-0 over Hopewell, 9-3 over Westfield, 16-3 over Long Valley and 11-1 over East Coast Baseball in the title game.

"There was some sort of mixup in shipping and they didn't have a trophy to give us," Manager Marchese laughed. "It's getting kind of funny. I sent an email to ask them what was going on. They told me the trophy is in the mail. Hey, it's just one of those things."

Besides, everyone on South Brunswick knows how well they played.

"I never thought we would win games (that one-sided)," Manager Marchese said. "East Coast Baseball is an outstanding team. Our bats just came alive. The defense was great. We pitched great.

"We're really more of a team than a few great players. We used eight different pitchers in the Hopewell Tournament. It wasn't like two or three guys were carrying us. Everyone played well. We had a great tournament."

The members of the team are Jalen Nock, Arvind Swaminathan, Joshua Liao, Nick Caimi, Ernie Cleworth, Martin James, Jake Rizck, Jack Marchese, Matt Lange, Seth Weingarten, Carey Liu and Kyle O'Leary.

The coaches on the team are Glen Marchese, Ernie Cleworth, Mark Lange and Michael James.

In addition to playing Hillsborough in the title game at Montgomery, South Brunswick is also currently active in the Monroe Tournament. This weekend, it will start play in a tournament being held in South Brunswick. In August, the team will play in Myrtle Beach.

"It seems like a lot, but it's spread out," Marchese said. "Rain messed up the schedule a little. There's some overlap. We're scrambling to makeup some games."

It'll all be worth it when those trophies start popping up.