The fun on the diamond continued last week. In a season of parity, seven Greater Middlesex Conference teams have a new order in this week’s rankings, including a new team entering the Top 10.
Notes are underneath the ranking.
GMC Top 10
(Records through Saturday, April 25)
1. Edison (8-3) – last week No. 1: Maybe the only surprise this season is there are no surprises. Edison suffered a shocking 14-0 loss to Woodbridge last week. Hey, sometimes the pitchers just don’t have it and they were meeting a prolific offense. The whole body of work, however, is weighed and the Eagles are sitting in first place in the Red Division at 8-2, two games ahead of Old Bridge. They have two-game sweeps over Old Bridge, South Plainfield and St. Joseph and a split with Monroe.
2. Middlesex (13-1) – last week No. 2: The Blue Jays have won nine straight. That includes a GMC White Division sweep over Sayreville last week, along with a win over J.F. Kennedy to complete a sweep and a non-conference victory over Wood-Ridge. Middlesex has a big series against Colonia this week that will decide the division champion. The Blue Jays are simply firing on all baseball cylinders, pulling out close games and piling up runs in others.
4. Monroe (7-6) – last week No. 7: This is where it gets tricky. Examining all the head-to-head results and the triangles between teams can make one's head spin. Monroe gets bumped up based on its body of work despite a 1-2 week with losses to St. Thomas Aquinas (for series split) and to Old Bridge in Game 1 of the series with a non-conference win over Red Bank Catholic. You can’t overlook Monroe’s sweeps over East Brunswick and St. Joseph with a split against No. 1 Edison. If you’re keeping score at home, Monroe has gone from preseason No. 9 to No. 3 to No. 7 to No. 4. What will next week bring?
5. East Brunswick (5-7) – last week No. 8: Next up, how about the Bears? They’re coming off a sweep over South Plainfield last week and have an earlier sweep over St. Thomas Aquinas. It gets muddied because EB went 0-2 against Monroe and St. Joseph and lost one game apiece to Edison and Old Bridge. With triangles between teams (for example, South Plainfield beat St. Joseph two times), there’s no clear-cut answers. Sometimes, you’ve just got to make the tough decisions with your best judgement. The good thing: teams ultimately control their destinies and this week EB plays Old Bridge once and Woodbridge twice.
6. South Plainfield (7-7) – last week No. 5: The Tigers drop a spot after going 0-2 against East Brunswick but they also beat Old Bridge to claim a series split. Ultimately, you can’t ignore South Plainfield’s earlier sweeps over Woodbridge and St. Joseph, as well getting splits with Old Bridge and St. Thomas.
7. Woodbridge (5-6) – last week No. 6: So, you beat the No. 1 team by 14-0 and … you fall a spot? Doesn’t seem fair, alas, that’s just the way the baseball rankings wind up sometimes. The Barrons’ win over Edison illustrates just how tough they can be in both hitting and pitching. Woodbridge is among the hottest teams by winning three of its last four games, including a split with St. Joseph. For now, Woodbridge sits at No. 7 having gone 0-2 against Old Bridge and South Plainfield in early April.
8. Colonia (9-3) – last week No. 4: While the record still looks good, the Patriots drop a few spots after losing three of four before sweeping Perth Amboy late last week. That includes getting swept against fledgling Spotswood and splitting with South Brunswick. All the pieces remain for a strong stretch run.
9. Metuchen (8-4) – last week No. 10: The Bulldogs shored up third place in the White Division after completing a sweep against South Brunswick and going 2-0 vs. J.F. Kennedy last week. That counts for something as Metuchen moves up a spot. The team's four losses are against No. 2 Middlesex and No. 8 Colonia. The Bulldogs, which outscored their last three opponents 35-6, look to finish the division strong with a series against Sayreville this week.
10. St. Joseph (5-8) – last week unranked: Simply, the Falcons played their way back in. St. Joseph was ranked No. 5 in the preseason, fell to No. 7 and then dropped out last week. They’re back. A mostly rebuilt roster is getting hot at the right time with wins last week over Woodbridge to get a series split and a victory over St. Thomas Aquinas in the first game.
Dropped: No. 9 St. Thomas Aquinas (4-9): The Trojans went 1-3 last week with a nice 8-1 win over Monroe. They’ll have a chance to move back in with the second game of the St. Joseph series and two games against Edison this week.
Spotswood’s charging againThis is the first time this decade there hasn’t been a Cumiskey starring for Spotswood. First, Casey and then his younger brother Carter excelled on the mound and at the plate, along with a stellar supporting cast. The Chargers faced questions this preseason after graduating Carter and 12 other seniors and started 0-4 and 1-5. Since then, Spotswood is 5-2 including an impressive GMC White Division sweep over Colonia and splits with J.F. Kennedy, Sayreville and South Brunswick. Senior Gavin Romeo has emerged to lead the team with a .359 batting average, 14 hits and 10 RBIs. Leo Carone (20 IP, 1.75 ERA), Jack Korneski (28 1/3 IP, 2.47 ERA) and Timmy Uhl (10 1/3 IP, 0.68) have thrown quality innings.
Hawks crash pennant race party
Carteret could have come closer to wrapping up the GMC Blue Division title with a sweep or two-game split with J.P. Stevens last week. The Hawks had other ideas. J.P. beat Carteret 3-1 and 10-0 to make it fun down the stretch. Carteret, J.P. Stevens and South River are all 9-3 in the division. South River is 2-0 against J.P. Stevens, while South River and Carteret split.
This week, Carteret plays New Brunswick twice, J.P. Stevens meets East Brunswick Magnet in the first game of the series and South River faces Piscataway twice.
Give credit to the Hawks for making it interesting. Soham Prajapati went the distance allowing a run and five strikeouts and Ronav Rajput had two RBIs in the 3-1 win over Carteret. In the 10-0 win, Aarush Patel threw a five-hit shutout in the full five innings and Nolan Overmyer was 3-for-4 with four RBIs.
NJ Baseball Greater Middlesex Conference Top 10 and notes, April 25
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