Sunday,
June 8, 2014
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Shore Regional's Matt Cosentino soaks it all in after throwing a complete game 4-hitter to beat Ridgefield, 7-1, in the Group 1 state final on Saturday at Toms River South High School. |
TOMS RIVER – There were a couple of plays here or there that might have had Ridgefield in a better position heading in the later innings of Saturday's Group 1 state final. A double play turned, a sacrifice bunt laid down and a couple of better pitches in two-strike counts might have made a difference for the Royals, who were playing on the final day of the baseball season for the first time ever. There were a couple of could-have-beens, but they were not really worth dwelling on when the game was over.
Ridgefield was up against a talented team with a talented starting pitcher in Matt Cosentino with a bulldog approach to the game and Shore Regional made sure there was going to be no late inning heroics any way when it broke the game open with a four-run seventh inning. When Ridgefield got on the bus for the ride home, it was on the short side of a 7-1 final score but on the long side of school history.
“Everybody is heartbroken, including me, but this is the best team ever at Ridgefield and that is what we are going to focus on,” said Royals head coach Joe Gambardella. “That kid [Cosentino] was good, they beat us today. We didn't hit, they did and they beat us straight up, but I don't want to shortchange my kids at this point, not with how far we have come.”
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Senior Joe Biggiani had two of Ridgefield's four hits, including a fifth inning triple. |
Cosentino is a senior who will play the outfield at George Washington University, so if this was his swan song to the pitcher's mound, then it was a perfect way to go out. The crafty left-hander went the distance on a four-hitter, walked three and struck out 10, including the final batter of the game to set off the celebration. Cosentino was admittedly running on fumes in the final inning, but there was no way he was giving up the ball until the job was done.
“I got out there in the fifth and sixth [innings] and I realized I was really tired. In the seventh inning I knew I really had to use my legs. But when I went out there I had so much adrenalin that I probably threw my hardest pitches in the seventh, even after coming back on three days rest after Pennsville [in the state semifinals] and probably more than 100 pitches,” said Cosentino. “Do to it in that fashion with that last strikeout was, literally, a dream come true.”
Ridgefield starter Eamon Catherina was full of adrenaline early as well as he struck out the side in the top of the first inning and and worked around two bloop hits in the second to keep the game scoreless. But in the third, Shore got its first key two-out hit of the game when James Kelly whacked a double into left centerfield to score Clayton Coffey with the game's first run.
Shore head coach Patrick O'Neill showed the confidence he had in his complete lineup in the top of the fourth. Dylan Vosk led off with a single and O'Neill then called for a sacrifice bunt to near the bottom of the order. When that didn't work, O'Neill called for another one and Matt McCarthy got the bunt down to set up No. 9 hitter Sam Parrino for a two-out RBI chance. Parrino came through with a single to make it 2-0, Coffey came through with a single on a hit-and-run to make it 3-0 and the Blue Devils then stole a third run in the inning.
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Nick Blaney drove in the final run for Shore, which finished the season with its second outright state championship and a 19-9 record. |
When Andrew Schulz hit a ground ball to third, Coffey took off from second and got in the Gavin Salazar's field of vision. Thinking he had an easy tag play coming his way, Salazar chose to go wait for Coffey, who then stayed in a run down long enough for Parrino to score before the out could be recorded.
“Even if we had won the [coin] flip we would have chosen to be the away team. We wanted to get up first, get some runs on the board and put the pressure on them. Their pitcher [Catherina] did a great job against us in the beginning of the game and we knew that we were in for a battle. [Ridgefield] is a scrappy team,” said O'Neill, who is in his third season as Shore Regional's head coach and his ninth with the program. “When we finally broke through it was a relief, but we still had a lot of work to do.”
Ridgefield drew to within 4-1 in the bottom of the fourth when Jordan Neira drove in Catherina with a two-out single and the Royals got a one-out triple for Joe Biggiani in the fifth with a chance to close the gap further, but Cosentino proved to be too tough. He escaped the fifth with no damage, struck out two after issuing a leadoff walk to Santo Guinta in the top of the sixth and then gave himself a whole lot more breathing room in the top of the seventh.
After Schultz singled with one-out, Cosentino unloaded on a fastball up in the zone and hit it onto the roof of Toms River South High School, which sits just behind or, better yet, makes up a part of the outfield wall in centerfield. That made it 6-1 and Nick Blaney added one last two-out hit, double to left-center that drive in Kelly with the game's final run.
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Eamon Catherina, Ridgefield's starter in the state final, will return next season. |
The win gave Shore Regional (19-9) its second outright state title, its last coming as a Group 2 school back in 1993.
“It means everything. These kids have worked extremely hard for our program and this is where we wanted to be. We knew we had the talent and we had to come together as a team. We did that and that is the satisfying part,” said O'Neill. “It also helps when you have seniors like Matt [Cosentino] and Andrew [Schulz] and Nicky [Blaney] coming through in huge spots. Three seniors playing their last games, three captains and they led us. They did an unbelievable job today.”
Ridgefield (19-9) had a solid core of seniors starters as the Class of 2014 includes Vin Cumella, Bigianni, Salazar, Neira and Syam Lafi, but the program, which has won two section titles in the last three years is built now and Royals expect deep state tournament runs to be an annual occurrence these days.
Both Catherina and Chris Martucci, Ridgefield's top two starters, will both return next season and that is a good place to start.
“After 2012 we expect to win to the section every year. I know that is a lofty goal but that is the goal. We bring five starters back and with Martucci and Catherina, I don't know if there is a better 1-2 coming back in Group 1 next year,” said Gambardella, whose 2012 team ended a 42-year state title drought. “These seniors had a great run. They won 80-something games in four years, which is incredible and it is our job to keep that going. I think the guys we have coming back will do that and I am glad they got to be a part of this. Every playoff game the crowds got bigger and bigger and there was a huge turnout today. We have the community behind us, there has been a tremendous out-pouring of support and I have nothing but love for them and for my guys.”
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