By: James McKeever
One day after returning from their successful trip to Florida, South Brunswick’s baseball team was welcomed back to New Jersey by an Old Bridge team that dealt the Vikings an extra-inning loss.
That didn’t sit well with the Vikings, who proceeded to take out their frustrations on their next two opponents.
Following the 8-7 loss to the Knights on Apr. 12, South Brunswick used a 15-hit attack to beat Woodbridge, 10-0, last Saturday. On Tuesday, the Vikings delivered 10 more hits, including three home runs, in a 17-2 romp over J.P. Stevens.
The latest victory gave South Brunswick a 6-2 record heading into a string of three games in three days that starts today (Thursday) at home against Piscataway (4 p.m.).
"They were a little ticked off after losing to Old Bridge," Vikings coach Leo Danik said. "We didn’t quite have our legs in that game. I’m not making excuses, but we didn’t get home from Florida the night before until 10 o’clock and the next morning we played Old Bridge.
"But by Saturday we got back into our regular routine and we had some crisp practices and then we came out and scored four runs in the first inning."
That was more than enough for pitcher Kyle Breese, who improved to 2-1 with a five-inning two-hitter. Breese (2.45 ERA) walked two and struck out nine.
In Tuesday’s win, Tyler Chromey (3-1, 2.17) pitched a three-hitter in the five-inning game, fanning five with no walks (one hit batter). Chromey has 25 strikeouts and two walks in 19.1 innings this season.
Russ Grimes and Brandon Martin each hit three-run home runs while John Haas blasted a solo shot to fuel the offense.
The bulk of the damage was done by the No. 6-9 hitters in the Vikings’ lineup: Matt Forthun (2-for-4, four RBI), Grimes (2-for-4, three RBI), Bobby Flesta (3-for-4, three RBI) and Martin (1-for-3, three RBI). The quartet produced eight hits and 13 RBI.
"That’s scary," said Danik.
Here are more scary numbers for South Brunswick’s opponents to think about: The Vikings have outscored teams 89-19. Their team batting average is .434. They have reached 10 runs or more in all six of their victories. Both South Brunswick losses have been by one run in eight innings.
"Against Stevens we just came out hitting from the first batter to the last," Danik said. "Now we just hope we can stay focused and keep doing things the right way."
South Brunswick has five players with at least 18 at-bats who are batting .400 or better, led by Mike Mariano (.536) and Haas (.516). The others are Jake Jaskowski (.480), Dan Gurney (.462), Forthun (.462) and Flesta (.444).

