Knights top Hightstown in MCT baseball
By: Bob Nuse
EWING So much for needing to have some momentum heading into tournament play.
The West Windsor-Plainsboro High North baseball team went into Saturday’s opening-round game against Ewing as cold as a team could be. The Knights had not only lost five in a row and eight of nine, but they had allowed seven or more runs in eight of the nine games and been outscored, 70-33, in the last nine games.
It was a far cry from the team that had opened the season by winning eight of nine games, capped off with a 1-0 win over Steinert. In the MCT game on Saturday, the Knights looked more like the team of early April, posting a 9-2 win to advance to Thursday’s quarterfinals, where they will face top-seeded Notre Dame.
"I pulled the seniors aside, told them all five were starting at the top of the lineup and they were going to get us going," said WW-P North coach Bob Boyce, whose team made the most of its six hits. "They approached the game the way it is supposed to be approached, with the urgency and the hop you need to be successful.
"I had tried everything else to turn this thing around. I tried different batting orders, different arrangements in the field. We’ve tried different people to try to jump start this thing."
With his seniors setting the table at the top of the lineup, Boyce saw his team snap out of its doldrums to earn a date with the Irish at Mercer County Park Thursday night at 7 p.m. Each of the five seniors scored at least one run, while the underclassmen got the job done at the bottom of the order.
"We fizzled off, but then I think we just got tired of it," said junior John Byrnes, who drove in a pair of runs in the fifth inning to break the game open. "No one on this team likes to lose. I think tonight might have been one of the first steps towards getting back to where we were. Ewing is a good team. They beat us twice already so it was nice to do it against them. We want to use this as a launching pad and get back on the right track."
The Knights certainly did that at the plate, getting to Ewing for nine runs less than a week after being shut out by the Blue Devils.
"I just think everybody was getting behind in the count and not swinging at good pitches for a while," Byrnes said. "Tonight we were swinging at pitches when we were ahead in the count, so we were getting better pitches to hit."
It also helped to have starting pitcher Dan Margiotti on top of his game. Over six inning he allowed just two hits, striking out seven and walking only four batters.
"I have to hand it to that kid," Boyce said. "He’ll have games like this where he’ll just blank people. He had a rough game against Princeton the other day. Tonight he came out here and boom, he did a great job. But that’s baseball."
And on this night, the seniors at the top of the lineup jumpstarted the Knights, including a pair Joe Saladino and Matt Ponchin who were getting a rare start.
"That Saladino kid does whatever I need him to do," Boyce said. "If I have someone warming up an outfielder, it’s always him. If I need a courtesy runner, it’s always him. If I need a first-base coach because (Brett) Charleston is down with a pitcher, he’ll hop out there."
Against Ewing, Saladino had a hit and drove in a run, while Ponchin also scored a run. Overall, it was a game that the Knights hope got them back to where they were earlier.
"We just have to go take care of business with Allentown on Tuesday and take it from there," Byrnes said. "This was a good game for us. Hopefully we can build on it."
For Byrnes, it would be a chance to continue a solid school year that has seen him emerge as a key player in not just baseball, but this past winter in basketball as well.
"There was a little time in baseball where I was struggling a little bit, not swinging at good pitches," he said. "I just adopted the mentality that if the first pitch is a strike, take a hack at it and see if I can hit it."

