By:Sean Moylan
By now, you don’t easily get surprised by the wonderful things Mark Drew does as a coach. His fantastic work ethic, his positive attitude toward his player’s abilities and his knowledge of baseball and basketball have always made him a dangerous coach.
This season, his first as the head coach of the Bordentown Regional High School boy’s varsity baseball team, Drew decided to let his very, very young club take their lumps and just “play” ball. The result is many players like Anthony Fansanella, D.J. Wirth, Ken Keiffer and Joe Farina have become bonafide stars. And Bordentown is now 14-7 and battling for the Freedom Division crown. Wow! Not bad for a first year.
Still, an ambitious coach Drew and his players want more — and they might get it. “All of our diapers are off and we’re ready to battle for the South Jersey title,” said coach Drew, following his team’s exciting 7-5 extra inning win at Maple Shade on Tuesday.
With every game Bordentown seems to come up with new heroes. Against Maple Shade, Ken Keiffer, who pitched three innings in relief of Joe Farina, who went the first five, was the hero and winner of the contest. Keiffer is now 4-2.
However, it was a great team effort. In the top of the eighth Jeff Denelsbeck smacked a leadoff double and D.J. Wirth followed with an RBI single. Gary Nocera then drove in an insurance run with another single and Bordentown had itself an extra-inning win. D.J. Wirth collected three hits, scored three times and drove in three runs in the game.
Unfortunately, on May 17, a “banged up” Bordentown squad lost a 12-3 home decision to Delran. Jon Fedak took the loss. Nonetheless, D.J. Wirth, Jeff Denelsbeck and Brett Sheehan all had RBI in the contest and Gary Nocera roped a double as Bordentown actually out hit Delran, 10-8.
The Scotties are now “fully” healthy and ready to “rock.” “We’re beating up on some people,” said coach Drew, who appreciates the run production from his team in recent weeks.
Bordentown has a home makeup game schedule versus Westampton Tech today.
On Tuesday Bordentown (seeded 3) will be at Riverside (seeded 2) for the opening contest of the NJSIAA South Jersey Group I playoffs. Both teams received first-round byes. The two clubs split their two meetings this season. It should be a good one.
