BY DOUG McKENZIE
Staff Writer
They may be the top-ranked baseball team in the Greater Middlesex Conference right now, but the South Brunswick Vikings are keeping their success in perspective.
“To be honest, I don’t put too much stock in some of the polls,” said head coach Leo Danik. “They don’t really mean too much until you get to the county tournament. It’s more of an honor than anything else at this point.
“The guys get a kick out of it.”
The respect the Vikings are getting is well deserved, as they have raced out to a 9-2 start this spring, with their lone losses coming to a nationally ranked team from Alexandria, Va., in a tournament at Walt Disney World last month, and to a solid Old Bridge team that topped the Vikings on their first game back from the Disney trip.
Since that game, South Brunswick has resumed playing like the team to beat in the GMC. Last Friday, the Vikings won a classic 2-1 contest over second-ranked St. Joseph – a game which pitted two of the conference’s elite pitchers against each other.
For South Brunswick, senior left-hander Kyle Breese took the ball, while the Falcons sent St. John’s University-bound senior Matt Owens to the hill. Neither pitcher disappointed.
“That was just a terrific pitchers’ duel,” Danik said. “Both pitchers were everything they were supposed to be and more. Their guy struck out 12 hitters, our guy got 13, and they both gave up just two hits.”
Danik also noted the buzz that the game seemed to generate from the start.
“When you get into the game, every once in a while you look around, and I noticed that there were a lot of people there,” the coach said. “That’s kind of a tribute to both teams. You don’t normally see a lot of people at high school baseball games.”
For those that did attend this one, it was worth it. The Vikings, trailing 1-0 with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning, had runners on second and third for their No. 5 batter, junior first baseman Jake Jaskowski. What ensued was a stellar at-bat, with the junior eventually smashing a hard-hit ball down the third base line. Falcon third baseman Brian Koster made a nice play to snag the ball on one hop, but his throw to first got by first baseman Ricky Hille, plating both the tying and go-ahead runs.
That was all Breese needed, as the southpaw improved to 3-1 on the year, and cemented the Vikings status as the GMC’s top team.
South Brunswick was tested again on Tuesday by the conference’s third-ranked team from Edison, and emerged with a 6-4 win. The Vikings got four runs in the home fifth to take the lead for good, with the big blow a two-run triple from Breese. Senior outfielder Russ Grimes added an insurance run in the following inning with a solo home run, and Lafayette-bound senior Tyler Chromey improved to 4-1 with the win, allowing just two earned runs in six innings of work.
With the win, the Vikings’ fifth in a row, South Brunswick stretched their lead in the GMC’s Red Division to one-and-one-half games over both St. Joseph and Edison. Winning the division title is the first item on a list of goals for Danik’s crew.
“Every day’s a dogfight in the Red Division,” the coach said. “And as the top-ranked team, you know you’re going to see everybody’s ace because everybody’s gunning for you. If you have a slipup, you’re going to get hurt.
“That’s what happened against Old Bridge,” he said. “We just got back from Florida … came out a little flat and Old Bridge took advantage of that.”
If the Vikings remain focused throughout the season, they certainly have the manpower to make a run at plenty of hardware.
Offensively, the Vikings are hitting at a torrent pace, hitting .400 as a team, and their line-up is contributing one through nine.
In the lead-off spot, junior infielder John Haas is hitting .488 with 18 runs scored in just 41 at-bats, while also knocking in six runs. Batting second, senior shortstop Dan Gurney is batting at a .394 clip with 15 runs scored and six RBIs.
Breese, who is headed to Monmouth University in the fall, is in the three spot, where he touts a .286 average, while cleanup hitter Mike Mariano, a junior catcher, is 18-for-36 (.500) on the year with a team-leading 12 RBIs. Jaskowski is also a solid run-producer in the five hole, hitting .485 thus far (16-for-33) with eight RBIs.
Junior outfielder Matt Forthun bats sixth, where he is hitting .364 (12-for-33) with nine RBIs, while Grimes leads the team in home runs (3) from the seventh spot, and is also hitting .333 (11-for-33).
In the eighth spot, Danik uses two different players, depending on who’s pitching that day, and both players are responding well to the system. Senior outfielder Bobby Flesta is hitting .400 (10-for-25), while junior outfielder Matt Ondrejack is just 1-for-4 on the year thus far, but is another solid presence at the plate.
Danik also has a platoon working in the nine spot, where senior infielder Tom Parisi (.333) and junior third baseman Brendan Martin (.300) share time.
“We’re hitting .400 as a team, which is great,” Danik said, adding that it’s certainly more than he expected from his team. “We have a lot of guys who worked very hard during the offseason, and it’s paying off.
And the Vikings’ pitching staff has been just as imposing, touring an impressive 2.59 ERA through 11 games. Along with Breese and Chromey, Forthun has also been solid, going 2-0 with a 1.62 ERA in limited work, while junior Connor Henderson and senior Eric Bednarski add depth.
Danik also intends to use Gurney, a right-hander, in some spots, and is also anxious to get junior lefty Mike Koller back from an injury.
The Vikings’ surplus of quality arms will certainly be an advantage down the stretch of the season, starting with next week, when they play games on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
“Having depth enables you to get through weeks like that,” Danik said.
As he looks ahead, Danik is hopeful that his team can maintain the level of play they displayed thus far. He knows the components are there for a special season, including the intangible qualities that help define championship teams.
“A lot of these guys have been playing together since they were 8-year-olds,” the coach said. “The trip to Florida and an earlier trip to Maryland only strengthened the team chemistry.
“But we have a lot of work ahead of us,” he added. “We still play St. Joe’s again, as well as Montgomery and CBA (May 13 at FirstEnergy Park in Lakewood). We need to come ready to play every day.”
Such is the life of the team to beat.