By: Rich Fisher
When they had the chance to let things slip away, they didn’t.
After suffering a couple of tough losses that left the South Brunswick Post 401 baseball team needing to win a playoff round to advance to the New Jersey American Legion State Tournament, the locals did just that.
South Brunswick swept Piscataway in two straight, as Matt Forthun pitched Post 401 to a 5-1 victory on Sunday and Scott Basarab hurled SB to an 8-3 win in Piscataway Tuesday night.
After a number of near-miss, frustrating season, SB is back in the states for the first time since the mid 1990’s. Post 401 opens the double elimination tournament Saturday, either at 10 a.m. in West Deptford against Broad Street Park or at 7 p.m. at Mercer County Park against Hamilton Post 31. Both teams are from Hamilton Township in Mercer County.
"We’re playing well right now, but we’ve played well all season," manager Tony Cosumano said. "You need to kind of try and play you’re game in the states. There are some teams you can beat up on in states, but you really have to try to stay out of the loser’s bracket from the get-go."
Basarab gets the start on Saturday after throwing just over 60 pitches Tuesday. The second-game starter has yet to be decided.
Forthun did the job in the opener on Sunday, allowing three hits and three walks and one run six innings. Devon Quaglietta had the game’s big hit with a two-run single in the first. South made it 4-0 in the fourth when Tim Barnshaw singled and Jarred Jimenez tripled and scored on an error. Barnshaw walked in the fifth and eventually scored on Nick Alberino’s single.
Jimenez finished 3-for-3 while Quaglietta had two hits.
After Monday’s game was rained out, South Brunswick ran its record to 24-3 on Tuesday, as Basarab threw the first six innings, allowing one run, six hits and no walks while striking out five. Anthony Viani delivered a two-run single, Travis Smart had two hits and an RBI single and Mike McCormick continued his solid season with a two-run homer.
"He’s been pretty steady," Cosumano said of the North Brunswick resident. "He’s kind of a surprise. We had one or two spots left and got a phone call that he was looking to play for somebody. We gave him a mini-tryout and liked what we saw.
"He played for Jersey City State, started for them and hit well in college. It was kind of like a no-brainer."
McCormick is just one a parade of contributors to South Brunswick during the season, as a good mix of veterans and youth provided Post 401 with everything it needed.
"Honestly, the league is not as strong as it was," Cosumano said. "But we beat the teams we were supposed to beat, and that’s how you get into the playoffs. When you don’t beat those teams, you go home, like we’ve done in the past couple of years.
"We just got efforts from a lot of guys this year. Jarred Jimenez was our best hitter, but we had efforts from other guys. We’ve basically been playing with 16 guys, and most of them contributed along the way."
One guy who has struggled offensively much of the year, but was still key to the effort, was Barnshaw at catcher.
"I think our strong point is our pitching, because we’ve got a lot of it," Cosumano said. "But you need a catcher who has good chemistry with the pitchers, and there’s no doubt Barnshaw had that. He always catches a good game and did the job defensively."
Pitching will mean more than ever now, as the games go from seven to nine innings. Cosumano is unsure how far his team can go, but isn’t ruling anything out.
"I was talking to one of the coaches in Mercer," he said. "Hamilton was the best team, but they’re not as good as they’ve been in the past. The coach I talked to played Hamilton and Milltown, and he told us Milltown is the better team."
Post 401 lost two out of three to Milltown this year, with the second loss dropping them from an automatic berth in the states. South also lost to Edison, before ending the regular season with three straight wins to regain positive momentum entering the playoffs.
SB won consecutive games against New Brunswick. In a 10-3 win last Tuesday, Smart collected more hits than he gave up, going 4-for-4 with two doubles, a triple and three RBI, while also firing a three-hitter with four strikeouts. Alberino and Viani had three hits each, while Jimenez had two hits and Quaglietta drove in two runs.
The following night, SB took an 8-6 win as Jimenez and McCormick each had two hits and three RBI. Mike Doros notched the win in relief, allowing four hits and no runs while striking out eight in 5Ð innings.
South completed the regular season with a 12-1 win over South River, as Basarab allowed three hits and struck out three in five innings. Quaglietta had two hits and three RBI while Barnshaw had two hits and two RBI. Alberino had a hit and two RBI.
"It was nice to see us come back from that loss to Edison," Cosumano said. "I mean, they were games we should have won, but there have been times in the past we didn’t win them. We took care of our business and we were ready to go for the playoffs."
Now, they have to be ready to go for the states.
