By: Bob Nuse
With a roster full of newcomers to the varsity level, Princeton High baseball coach John Miranda can use all the veteran help he can get.
Enter RJ Nicholas.
"He is one of our two captains along with Matt Welsh," Miranda said of the Cranbury resident. "He started as our catcher last year and he has been a real team leader for us this year. He is certainly one of our emotional leaders on the field. He’s the guy that gets everybody else charged up. He and Matt have been the force that keeps everybody else in line.
"He’s been great. He runs the whole team. It’s like having a general out there on the field."
Nicholas is one player who loves the added responsibility of being a team leader. In fact, he might be a little lost if that role fell to someone else.
"I definitely try to be a leader on the field," said Nicholas, a senior who is in his fourth season with the Little Tigers’ varsity. "I feel like it’s my job as a catcher to make sure everyone is ready before each play and to make sure the pitcher always is ready. As fielders, you need to have your head in the game every play. You need to always know where the play is going to go.
"And we also have some younger pitchers who are coming along. It’s easy with someone like Matt because we’ve been playing together a long time and I’ve been catching him for so long. I try to help the pitchers and when I’m back behind the plate I try to control the game."
Nicholas guided one of those pitchers, Colin Sarafin, through six strong innings on Tuesday as Princeton picked up its second win of the season, 15-5 over Pennington. Sarafin struck out 10 batters, allowed just five hits and walked one.
"It was a nice win and one we really needed," said Miranda, whose team snapped a three-game losing streak and improved to 2-5. "We finally broke out with the bats and that was good to see. Our defense has been mediocre, but we have been getting consistently good pitching. We’ve really only had a couple of bad innings this year pitching. Other than that we’ve been pretty good. If the defense tightens up and we start to hit, I think we can start to win some games."
Sarafin had a couple of hits and drove in three runs, as did Danny Etherton. Welsh had two hits and drove in a pair of runs. In all, Princeton finished with nine hits, all over the final two innings.
"Their kid had a no-hitter until the fifth and then we started to hit," said Miranda, whose team will play at Princeton Day School today. "It was a total explosion for us. Hopefully that was a sign of things to come. I think it takes a little while with a young team like we have to gel and put the pieces of the puzzle together.
"We lost a couple of tough games. We lost a one-run game to Allentown and we lost a game to Nottingham that was 1-0 most of the game before they scored a couple at the end. We’ve had opportunities. We just have not been able to get that big hit when we need it."
Nicholas, who scored a pair of runs in the win over Pennington, feels like Princeton is just now starting to hit its stride.
"I think at the beginning of the season, everyone was just doing their own thing," he said. "Now that we’re a couple of weeks into the season, we’re starting to come together more as a team.
"I think in the beginning of the season, and even in the pre-season, our confidence was a little shaky. I don’t know if we knew how to work as a team. But we have come together more lately and I feel like we can still play some quality baseball this year."
Princeton would like to finish the season the way it finished the game against Pennington. The Little Tigers had two runs on no hits in the first four innings before scoring 13 runs the final two innings.
"We got to see their pitcher a couple of times through the lineup and then we finally started to hit," Nicholas said. "We knew we just needed to bear down and eventually the hits would start to come."
They’ve come quite often over the last two years for Nicholas, who has been as dependable a player as Miranda could want. And one who knows where he fits in best on the baseball field.
"I used to play second base, that’s where I first started playing," Nicholas said. "But I’ve been catching ever since I got to high school. That’s where I like to play because I really feel like I am involved in every play. I love playing catcher."
And Miranda just loves having him on the field, where he has been a key to the fortunes of the Little Tigers.