When is an underdog not an underdog, but acts like an underdog?
When it’s the South Plainfield baseball team.
The Tigers are the top seed in the GMC Tournament. They swept heavy favorite Old Bridge two weeks before the seeding meeting to claim the GMC Red and earn the top seed.
Yet all season long, they’ve played with the mentality that no one thinks they can win. So far, they’ve proven all the doubters wrong. And one more win will clinch it.
One more win Saturday afternoon in the GMC Tournament final against top-seed Old Bridge would give them their second GMC title, and first since 2018, when they won as a 14-seed, beating 12-seed Perth Amboy, 2-1 in 12 innings.
Senior Zack Robinson has heard about that game, but he and this current Tiger team want to make their own history. Robinson – a Gardner-Webb commit – is a big reason why.
Heading into a Friday non-conference game with Notre Dame of Lawrenceville, Robinson is leading the team with an eye-popping .479 batting average. He;s got 23 RBIs – second only to Jayden Alvarez’s 24 – and has three home runs on the season.
And he and all of his teammates fed of the underdog mentality. About halfway through the season, they started calling themselves dogs.
They scored six runs in the seventh in the GMCT quarters to beat South Brunswick. How’d they do it? “We’re just a bunch of dogs.”
One more win, and they’ll be top dogs of the Greater Middlesex Conference.
Click below to hear Mike Pavlichko talk with South Plainfield senior shortstop Zach Robinson:
https://cjsportsradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/5-16-24-SP-ZACH-ROBINSON-preview-for-web.mp3
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