Sunday,
May 4, 2014
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Chris Nedilsky threw a complete game 4-hitter without walking a batter as Emerson edged closer to a Bergen County Tournament berth with a 6-1 win in the final edition of the Cich vs. Cich Classic on Saturday in Wood-Ridge. |
WOOD-RIDGE – With 522 career wins coming into this season, which is his 29th as the head baseball coach at Emerson, Bob Carcich had already announced that this was going to be his last. He as been an integral part of Bergen County baseball for the past three decades; a multiple-time state champion, a member of the county tournament selection committee, a cult of personality at Emerson, the little program that could and did win in spades. So as he makes his way around a regular-season high school baseball schedule for the last time, there are a lot of people who have made a point of stopping to say, “Thanks,” for one reason or another.
“Yesterday we played at Park Ridge and it was the last time I was going to coach against Pete Crandall. We lost, but one of the nice things was four seniors from their team came over and congratulated me on my career and said it was nice playing against me. There has been a lot of those types of things and that meant a lot,” said Carcich. “It does feel a little like the Derek Jeter retirement tour, but it is nice. It's nice but it is sad...you know what I mean?”
So it was in that spirit, it was nice to be at the final edition of Cich vs. Cich, the yearly matchup between Emerson and Wood-Ridge that has allowed Bob Carcich to match wits with Mike Carcich, his son and the Blue Devils' head coach. It was also sad in a way because, if you have ever heard either Carcich coach a game or both of them coach a game at the same time, you know there will be missing one-liners next year on the date that this game might have been played.
The final tally is now in as, after Emerson's 6-1 victory on Saturday, Bob Carcich owns a lifetime mark of 5-1 against team coached by his son. They split 1-1 in the two years that Mike coach Northern Valley/Demarest and when it became a Group 1 vs. a Group 1, Bob swept the four-year series against Wood-Ridge. It will stay that way unless the two teams meet up in the North 1, Group 1 state sectional playoffs or in the Bergen County Tournament, which is the other sidebar story to this game.
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Tom Luizzi's groundout in the bottom of the fifth inning drove in the lone run for Wood-Ridge. |
More than a sentimental sendoff, Bob Carcich really needed a win to keep alive his team's hopes of making the county tournament, which is played in part at Emerson High School and is co-directed by the Emerson head coach. Not that Mike Carcich was going to give his father a free pass as he threw his co-ace, Nick Champino, for 6 2/3 innings, but he was not exactly upset that the Cavos got one step closer to a postseason bid. A win on Sunday against Ridgefield just might seal the deal for Emerson, which is now 9-5 on the season.
“Every loss hurts, but I can handle this one a little better knowing that this gives him a little extra kick to get in the county tournament in his last and final season and as a the tournament director. I'll be there rooting him on against Ridgefield tomorrow,” said Mike Carcich, whose team, at 14-5, is already safely in with the .650 winning percentage needed for automatic entry. “I wasn't going to give it to him, but he did earn it. That kid [Chris] Nedilsky pitched his [posterior] off and he did a great job for them.”
In deed he did as Nedilsky went the distance on a four-hitter as he did not issue a single walk and needed just 74 pitches to navigate the full seven innings. While the final score suggested a comfortable win, Emerson was clinging to a 2-1 lead heading into the seventh inning and just about every pitch Nedilsky threw was a big one.
“I knew we had to get this win if we wanted to make the counties and I knew that this was the last time that our coach Carcich was going to play against his son. It feels good to be the winning pitcher in this game for both of those reasons,” said Nedilsky, who improved his personal mark to 5-1 on the season. “I had a lot of bottled up energy. I took the SATs this morning and I couldn't wait to get out to the mound. First pitch strikes were key today and I didn't walk anybody. I was in the zone.”
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Joe Fisco won one of 5 Emerson hitters to have a multiple-hit game. |
Nedilsky (7 IP, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 H, 8 K, 0 BB) retired nine of the first 10 hitters he faced and his team gave him a lead to work with in the top of the third, a rally that started with a leadoff walk drawn by Anthony Scozzafava, who moved up a base on a sacrifice bunt. Joe Fisco was hit then hit by a pitch. A Nedilsky groundout to the right side moved both runners into scoring position for Jon Juri, who banked a base hit off a diving infield to drive in the game's first run and Tyler Pavone followed with a bloop single to the opposite field to make it 2-0.
Wood-Ridge got its lone run in the top of the fourth when Nick Belgiovine led off with an infield single and took second on a wild pitch. Champino then crushed a double to the gap in right center, but because the pinch runner for Belgiovine had to wait to see if the flyball would be run down, he was only able to advance to third. Wood-Ridge was spared the blushes when Ryan Morrone eventually came home to score on Tom Luizzi's ground out to shortstop to get the Blue Devils back to within 2-1.
The score stayed that way until Emerson's final at bat when it was finally able to string some hits together. The Cavos left nine runners on base, five of them in scoring position, through the first six innings, but finally got the carousel turning in the seventh. With one out Pavone, Joey Messner and Matt Durocher all singled with the last of those driving in a run. Jake Leara's RBI groundout made it 4-1 and Fisco's two-out, two-run single broke the game open.
“We wanted to get this win for our coach. He's helped me mature as a young man and a as a ballplayer and I think the best way to say thank you was to get him a win here today,” said Pavone, a three-year starter who will play at College of St. Joseph in Rutland, Vermont next season. “We fell off track a little bit in the middle of the season. We lost four straight and we had to battle back. We have to keep our heads together going into the Ridgefield game tomorrow and get ourselves into the county tournament.”
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Nick Belgiovine had two hits for Wood-Ridge, which fell to 14-5 on the season. |
Pavone (3-for-4, RBI, R), Fisco (2-for-4, 2 RBI, R), Messner (2-for-4, R), Durocher (2-for-4, RBI, R) and Chris Porcello (2-for-2, HBP), who came on as a pinch hitter in the No. 9 hole in the fourth inning, all had multiple hit games for Emerson. Belgiovine (2-for-3, R), Ryan Macri and Champino had the hits for Wood-Ridge.
How the season plays out from here is anyone's guess, but as soon as it is over the first question that will likely be asked of either Coach Carcich will be about Mike taking over the Emerson program that his father has so successfully built over the past 29 years.
Well, those potential inquisitors might as well save their breath as here is the emphatic answer:
“Who wants to follow a guy who has almost 550-[expletive deleted] wins? No [expletive deleted] way. Are you [expletive deleted] me?” said Mike Carcich. “All kidding aside, he has a couple of good assistants that have been there for a while and deserve the chance and I actually have a good group of kids here. I do think that we have built a nice program here over the last couple of years and I want to see that through. With Pompton Lakes and Emerson and Ridgefield in our Group 1 bracket it is going to be tough to win the state title this year, but I do think that next year, with the core that we have coming back, we are going to be able to give it a good shot. I'd like to get a state title down the road, maybe a league title this year and keep building what we have started to build here; an Emerson of the south.”
NOTE: While it was father vs. son in opposing dugouts, the umpiring crew kept it all in the family as well. Joe Belger, Sr. worked behind the plate while his son, Joe Belger, Jr., worked the bases.
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