Baseball team to face huge tests
By: Bob Nuse
Dale Hering remembers what it was like to be part of a Montgomery High baseball team that started the season 16-0 two years ago.
He also remembers that team finishing the season 4-5 over the last couple of weeks.
A year ago, Hering was part of a team that finished the season strong, coming from a sub-.500 record to win the North Jersey, Section 2 Group III championship.
This year, the Cougars have started the season with four straight wins. And they hope this season ends more like last year than the season two years ago.
"We’ve been doing well so far," said Hering, who is now a senior and the top pitcher for the Cougars. "We’re 4-0 and that is definitely the way we wanted to start the season. I think we took the momentum we had from the end of last season when we had that real good run in the state tournament, and it has carried over into this year for us.
"My sophomore year we started out 16-0 and then we kind of died at the end of the season and ended up 20-5. That’s something we want to try to avoid this year. Last year we struggled at times during the regular season, but then we put it together at the end of the season and had a real good run through the state tournament and won the sectional championship."
Somewhere there must be a happy medium between the 16-0 start of 2004 and the sectional title run of 2005. If there is, the Cougars hope this is the year they find it.
"That’s the plan," said Montgomery coach Peter Mueller, whose team will host Bridgewater today at 3:45 p.m. "We talk a lot about making sure we’re playing our best at the end of the year. But we also don’t want to come out sluggish at the beginning of the year. We’ve started with four straight wins, but we’re still not playing our best. We have a long way to go.
"We have a six-game stretch coming up that will go a long way towards defining our season. We have three tough games this week with Bridgewater, Hillsborough and Edison, then we follow that up with Immaculata, Watchung Hills and JFK (Iselin) next week. They are all strong teams, so we have to show up and be ready to play our best each game. That’s why it was nice to get off to a good start like this and have a nice four-win cushion in the win column."
Hering is one of the veteran holdovers who have helped the Cougars start the season strong. After suffering heavy graduation losses, this looked like a team that might take a while to get going. Instead, Montgomery has started the season strong.
"We had a bunch of seniors graduate that were all very good players," said Hering, who has a win and a no decision in his two starts this year. "But the new kids have come in and have filled in the holes that we had very nicely. We had holes to fill at a lot of key positions catcher, shortstop, some spots in the outfield. We had to get some new players in those spots and they have come in and filled in nicely. It’s almost like we have a whole new team.
"Our coach told us that we needed to find that groove that worked for us at the end of last year and use it again this year. I thought we played really well as a team at the end of the year last year and that was a big difference for us."
Hering is 1-0 in his two starts this year, picking up a win in the Cougars’ opening 5-1 win over Voorhees before getting a no decision in a 2-1 win over Warren Hills. Montgomery has also shown it can win with the bats, as was the case in a 10-8 win over Ridge and a 10-2 win over Franklin.
"We’re still not quite sure what we have offensively at this point," Mueller said. "We have guys that can grind it out and manufacture runs this year. We can play some small ball if we have to. We’re emphasizing the importance of every at bat. It’s a process and the kids are learning. My offensive philosophy is always determined by the dynamic of the team. If that means we have to win games 5-4 instead of 10-4, that’s fine with me as long as we win."
So far, all the Cougars have done is win. And they’ve done it as a team that seems to really enjoy playing together.
"We definitely feel like that, even more so than last year," said Hering, who hit a home run in the win over Franklin. "I think this year everyone has really clicked and gets along just great. We’re probably as close a team as we’ve had. A lot of us have played together since we were real young. With our senior class, we’ve all been together for the last six or seven years. And for me, I played with a lot of the juniors as well because I am young for my grade. So this has been a real good year for us.
"Our sophomore have come in and filled some holes for us. And the juniors have stepped in and also filled in some of the holes we had."
Any holes Montgomery had in the pitching staff appear to have been filled. In four games, four different pitchers have earned wins. And Mueller is hoping that’s a trend that continues.
"I’ve actually been discussing that quite a bit with my staff," the Montgomery coach said. "We’ve thrown five pitchers so far and we probably have six more who are varsity ready to pitch, who I have not been able to get into a game yet. Our pitching staff is as deep as it has ever been. I hoping that makes a difference for us this year at the end of the season when teams need to go deep into their staff.
"I feel like I have seven or eight guys who would be considered No. 2 pitchers on most teams and another three or four who would be No. 3 pitchers. Hopefully, that will show for us at the end of the season."
At this point, Hering is the No. 1. And he will probably take that title into next year, when he heads to Rutgers University.
"I’m looking forward to playing for Coach (Fred) Hill," Hering said. "I think my mom and dad are looking forward to it even more because I’ll be close enough for them to come to all the games. I had thought about some schools in Florida, but it worked out well to be able to stay close and go to Rutgers."

