Wednesday, South Plainfield earned a 3-2 nonconference win over Madison when catcher Luke Bickunas singled in the bottom of the ninth inning. Jack Massett shined in the start by scattering seven hits with nine strikeouts in seven innings.
Top 10 Entering Week 4
(Records through Saturday, April 23)
Analysis: It’s been a spring of parity. Minus St. Joseph remaining undefeated in GMC play, there have been splits galore. While it’s fun for fans and makes for great games, it creates a logjam with several teams able to make cases for a higher ranking – or to get into the poll at all. It also depends on who’s pitching a particular day.
That’s what makes baseball rankings so tough to figure out compared to other sports. It’d be like if a different quarterback played every third game. For now, this is how the Top 10 shakes out entering the last week of April.
1. St. Joseph (9-1) – last week No. 1: The Falcons defeated Monroe twice for their fourth GMC sweep of the season. All-GMC first baseman Tyler Delvecchio is heating up and went 4-for-6 with five RBI and a home run in the wins over Monroe.
2. Monroe (6-5) – last week No. 2: Can’t ding Monroe that much for getting swept against St. Joseph and losing to nonconference Jackson Liberty. They have a key sweep over South Plainfield and split with Old Bridge.
3. South Plainfield (7-4) – last week No. 3: The Tigers didn’t have any GMC games this week and went 2-1 against nonconference competition. South Plainfield beat Madison and Union and fell to Millburn. Their earlier sweeps against Edison and Old Bridge keeps them at No. 3.
4. East Brunswick (6-5) – last week No. 5: The Bears split with No. 8 South Brunswick, getting no-hit by one of the best pitchers in the GMC in Joey Tuttolimondo. EB responded by pulling out a 4-2 win the next day as Michael Marchese went the distance with 12 strikeouts.
5. Old Bridge (5-5) – last week No. 7: The Knights had their Red Division bye week, but didn’t exactly put their feet up all week. Old Bridge lost to Ferris, which is 7-3, and beat White Division Sayreville.
6. Woodbridge (9-2) – last week No. 10: The Barrons have a balanced team with anyone in the lineup capable of getting a big hit with steady pitching. That equaled to an impressive sweep over Spotswood and a win over Carteret.
7. Middlesex (8-3) – last week No. 6: Sweeps in the White Division are hard, and the Blue Jays held serve by splitting with Colonia.
8. South Brunswick (4-6) – last week No. 8: See above, but add in Red Division. The Vikings split with East Brunswick and lost to nonconference power Cranford.
9. Edison (4-5) – last week No. 9: I’ll type it again – see above. The Eagles split with Perth Amboy, running into the hot arm of Issaiah Batista. They also beat the White Division’s Piscataway.
10. (Tie) Spotswood (7-3) – last week No. 4: Maybe it’s not fair to drop Spotswood six spots to No. 10. Look, the Chargers probably weren’t going undefeated anyway and you can’t criticize them for losing three games against surging teams in Woodbridge and St. Thomas Aquinas. That’s baseball and Spotswood is a quality club. Still, the teams ahead of them didn’t do anything to merit getting dropped this week.
Metuchen (5-4) – last week No. 10: A week after sweeping Woodbridge to enter the poll, the Bulldogs split with J.F. Kennedy and beat nonconference Madison. It just so happens that Metuchen plays Spotswood on Thursday.
Baseball: GMC Top 10, games to watch and highlights from Week 3 (mycentraljersey.com)
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