Crazy 12th inning leads South Plainfield to 1st GMC Tournament title
By Joe Zedalis
NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on May 26, 2018 6:18 PM
By the time the Greater Middlesex County Tournament title game rolled into the 12th inning Saturday at East Brunswick Vo-Tech it became apparent it wasn’t going to be won by conventional means.
“You just knew it was going to take something crazy to win it,” said South Plainfield head coach Anthony Guida.
South Plainfield gutted out a 2-1 victory over Perth Amboy and won its first GMC title in East Brunswick. It was only the third GMC title game to go beyond 10 innings in tournament history.
In the 12th, mayhem ensued in both halves of the inning.
In the top of the 12th, South Plainfield’s Connor Adams was at second base with no outs. His No. 3 hitter was in the box and the clean-up hitter was in the on-deck circle.
“We talked about stealing third and we told the kids if you’re going to make it, you have to make it.
“Connor told me he had it the whole way.”
Matt Smith | For NJ Advance Media
Adams broke for third as teammate Mike Stanczak swung through a letter-high strike three.
Perth Amboy catcher Darius Diaz fired to third. His throw sailed over the head of third baseman Bryan Lorenzo and down the left field line. Adams popped up and raced home with the go-ahead and eventual winning run. It was Perth Amboy’s sixth error of the title game.
There was, however, more craziness in the bottom of the 12th.
Perth Amboy, which outhit South Plainfield, 12-6, got a pair of one-out singles in the last of the 12th. Lead-off hitter Diaz — a lefty hitter — then slapped a line drive to left field that was slicing back toward the foul line. South Plainfield left-fielder Chris Born was sprinting toward right center.
“My heart stopped for a second,” Born said.
At the last second, with Perth Amboy base runner Juan Nunez nearly to third, Ford reached up, and over his right shoulder, snaring the hooking line drive.
“I saw the runner break for third as the ball came off the bat and all I was thinking was ‘catch it, catch it,’” Born said.
One he caught the ball, Born lobbed the ball to the infield where a throw to second base completed a game-ending, double-play — South Plainfield’s third of the game.
South Plainfield finished its season at 20-10. The Tigers went 17-4 in their last 21 games. South Plainfield’s last loss to a GMC opponent was April 30.
It was a brilliantly pitched game. South Plainfield’s Chris Shine, throwing an 89-mph fastball and Perth Amboy’s Jose Peralta — who topped out at 81 — were magnificent.
Both starters went 8.2 innings before reaching pitch limits.
Neither walked a batter. Shine (5-2) struck out four. Peralta (5-2)fanned seven. Neither starter figured in the decision.
The difference, however, was defense. South Plainfield played errorless ball and Perth Amboy made six miscues — and the errors figured in both South Plainfield runs.
In the top of the first, the No. 1 and No. 2 hitters in the South Plainfield lineup reached on errors in the game’s first three pitches.
A Perth Amboy error on a grounder to short and then another by Peralta, who slipped and fell on a successful sacrifice but by Mike Marrero put runners at first and third. Adams alertly took third went it went uncovered on the sacrifice.
Matt Smith | For NJ Advance Media
Stanczak then lofted a sacrifice fly scored Adams and giving South Plainfield a 1-0 lead.
Shine protected the lead until the fourth when Perth Amboy scratched for a run.
Chris Brito, a Rutgers University recruit, who had two hits, led off with a double and moved to third on an infield single by Bryan Valenzuela. Brito scored the tying run when Dailyn DeLosSantos bounced into a 4-6-3 double-play.
Both teams had opportunities in the remaining three innings of regulation.
Matt Smith | For NJ Advance Media
South Plainfield stranded single runners in the fifth, sixth, seventh, ninth an 10th innings.
Perth Amboy (14-12) had two on and no outs in the seventh, but Shine got out of that mess with another 4-6-3 double-play. Perth Amboy also left two runners on in the ninth and one on in the 11th.
The two relievers — South Plainfield’s Billy Keane and DeLosSantos both pitched well in relief.
Keane pickup up the victory. In 3.1 innings, Keane allowed four hits with one strikeout and zero walks.
Matt Smith | For NJ Advance Media
South Plainfield wins first GMC baseball tournament championship in 12-inning thriller
Greg Tufaro, @GregTufaroPublished 5:14 p.m. ET May 26, 2018 | Updated 6:05 p.m. ET May 26, 2018
(Photo: Ed Pagliarini)
After drawing a leadoff walk and advancing on a fielder’s choice to start the top of the 12th inning, fleet-footed Connor Adams took his lead off second while sizing up the opposing pitcher.
The senior center fielder noticed hard-throwing righthander Jodarlyn De Los Santos had a high leg step in his delivery out of the stretch and felt he could steal third base with one away.
At that point in the game, South Plainfield had already stranded 10 runners, seven in scoring position.
Adams, who has the green light to steal with South Plainfield High School baseball coach Anthony Guida’s approval, flashed a sign to his mentor that he wanted to take off with Mike Stanczak, the team’s leading run-producer, at the plate.
Stanczak entered Saturday’s Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament championship game at Raymond J. Cipperly Field on the campus of East Brunswick Tech with a team-high 25 RBI and a conference-leading nine homers.
“We have a sign,” Guida explained. “(Adams) looked at me. He told me he had it. With (the heart of the order) coming up with one out, I felt we haven’t gotten the big hit today. I’m going to roll the dice. I want us to get a big hit. He went on his own.”
Adams took off for third without his coach’s blessing, testing the arm of Perth Amboy senior Darius Diaz, a Division I signee who is regarded as one of the state’s best catchers.
“He knows better than me,” Guida continued. “I told him all year, if you’re going to give me a sign and you’re telling me you can get it, you’d better be safe. I usually OK it (the sign). And I did not OK it.”
Adams dove head first into third base and, from the corner of his eye, watched Diaz’s throw sail over the head of the third baseman. Adams quickly jumped to his feet and raced home, touching the plate before the left fielder had a chance to retrieve the errant throw.
Reliever Billy Keane made Adams’ run stand up, working out of a first-and-second jam with one away in the bottom of the 12th as South Plainfield hung on for a thrilling 2-1 victory to win its first league tournament title in school history.
“Seniors in the moment are going to perform,” Guida said of Adams’ gutsy decision to steal on what proved to be a swinging third strike with the cleanup hitter on deck. “He felt it and he knew in his heart he was going to make it. Another error gave us an opportunity to score a run, or else we still might be here.”
South Plainfield (20-11) scored both its runs without the benefit of a base hit. The Tigers took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first when Adams reached on an infield error, raced to third on a misplayed sacrifice bunt and scored on Stanczak’s sacrifice fly to left-center.
Perth Amboy ace Jose Peralta, who will continue his career at Kean University, settled down and shut out the Tigers until being lifted after reaching the NJSIAA pitch limit in the ninth. South Plainfield had runners in scoring position with two away in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings. Peralta ended each frame with a strikeout to preserve a 1-1 tie.
The Panthers scored the equalizer in the bottom of the fourth. Chris Brito led off with a single, stole second and advanced to third on Bryan Valenzuela’s infield single, which came after Valenzuela fouled off four consecutive two-strike pitches. Brito scored when De Los Santos grounded into a 4-6-3 double play, the first of two twin killings that helped South Plainfield ace Chris Shine work out of a jam (the second came with runners on first and second and one away in the bottom of the seventh).
Shine, who has committed to Seton Hall University, entered the contest with a deceptive 4-2 record and a league-leading 0.31 ERA. He was brilliant through eight and two thirds innings, scattering nine hits against a Perth Amboy team that entered the contest with a .340 batting average.
(Photo: Ed Pagliarini)
“The top half of their lineup is killer,” Shine said. “They all can hit the ball. Basically, I just needed to locate my pitches. Coming out I was overthrowing a little bit because I was a little antsy out there. After I settled in, I got location of the curve, got location of the fastball and spotted up where I wanted to, and it was all good.”
Juan Espaillat’s pinch-hit single with two away in the ninth put runners on the corners and chased Shine, who was near the NJSIAA pitch limit. Keane entered in relief and walked the first batter he faced on a full count to load the bases for No. 8 batter Juan Nunez, who worked the count to 2-2 before fanning on a cut fastball.
“In my bullpen I just threw a lot of offspeed (pitches) because I knew I was going to have to work backwards against these guys,” Keane said. “They can hit fastballs. I came with two curveballs (to Nunez for strikes) and a cutter. I just tried to stay calm and I trusted my defense the whole time.”
Keane’s defense bailed him out in the bottom of the 12th. After Nunez and No. 9 batter Gary Galan delivered consecutive singles with one away, Diaz stepped to the plate with a chance to redeem himself. One of the conference’s most dangerous hitters, Diaz laced a sharp line drive to left-center that outfielder Chris Born nearly misplayed.
“I almost over ran it, but I was not letting it drop in,” said Born, noting the ball was slicing away from him off the bat of the left-handed hitting Diaz. “Right off the bat I saw (the runner on second) go and I was like, that’s a little weird.”
After catching the ball in the webbing of his green glove with his arm outstretched well over his head, Born easily doubled off the lead runner, who broke on contact, for a game-ending double play that set off a wild celebration on the first-base side of the pitcher’s mound, where a sea of grey jerseys formed a dog pile as the league tournament was decided by a single run for the fifth consecutive year.
(Photo: Ed Pagliarini)
“This team was going to do special things all year,” said Keane, noting the Tigers were undaunted following Thursday’s 11-2 Central Group II quarterfinal loss to perennial power Governor Livingston. “If it wasn’t a state championship, I knew it was going to be this conference.”
South Plainfield entered the league tournament final having won 15 of its last 18 games, a remarkable turnaround from the start of the season when the Tigers dropped seven of nine in early April, a stretch that clearly belied the team’s abundant talent.
“All year we’ve been working hard,” Shine said. “We went through some rough patches at the beginning of the season and then we got hot. Governor Livingston didn’t go as planned. We came here with one mindset and that was to finish off the game. We did and it was amazing.”
Guida twice before led his team to the league tournament final. The Tigers lost 3-2 in 11 innings to Old Bridge in 2011 and 1-0 to St. Joseph in 2014.
“It’s a wonderful feeling,” Guida said of the third finals appearance being a charm. “We’ve had great teams here that weren’t able to win the last game of the season. I’m so happy for the town, happy for the alumni that are here and the whole school community that came to support us.”
Perth Amboy (14-12) was making its first league tournament final appearance in school history. The 12th-seeded Panthers and 14th-seeded Tigers were the lowest combination of finalists to reach the championship game in the conference tournament’s 32-year history. South Plainfield is the second lowest seed to win a league title, with Woodbridge setting that record as a 17th-seeded champion in 2000.
“There are no words for it,” said Adams, who struggled to sum up his emotions after the win. “A 12-inning game. The last game of my high school career. It can’t get better than this.”
