By: John E. Powers
After awhile, tough losses kind of blend into one another, said South Hunterdon Regional High School baseball coach Ron Peterson.
"You kind of lose track because they tend to pile up on you," he said earlier this week.
By the beginning of last week, the Eagles were 0-11, playing the difficult schedule of the Skyland Conference Raritan Division where four of the seven schools North Warren, Somerville, Hackettstown and Delaware Valley have qualified for the state tournament and the other Belvidere has a winning divisional record.
Playing tough competition must be helping the Eagles.
"All of those teams we were really outmatched by," Peterson said. "We surprised Belvidere by going 10 innings, and maybe we thought we’d get our first one there (they lost 8-6 in 10 innings May 2). Delaware Valley had their way with us, and it was pretty much the same with Hackettstown, Somerville and North Warren."
But the Eagles got a chance to celebrate themselves last week. South Hunterdon won two straight games, beating Warren Tech 6-5 last Monday despite having only nine healthy players and then beating Central Jersey Group I tournament-qualifier Bound Brook 11-3 Tuesday.
Both games were played on the road.
The Eagles were scheduled to finish the season at home Tuesday afternoon with a game against Plumstead Christian, Pa. The good thing is the Eagles are making progress and with just one senior on the roster outfielder and pitcher Karl Miller their future looks pretty bright.
"It was an interesting week," said Peterson, also the school’s athletic director. "We went to Warren Tech with just nine players. We had to leave two of them at one, one with an illness and the other with bad allegories.
The Eagles fell behind 4-0 in the first inning, but rallied with two runs in the sixth inning and two in the seventh to tie the game five. Then the Eagles won it with a run in the eighth inning.
Sophomore first baseman Kyle Hart, who entered this week with a sizzling .580 batting average, went 4-for-5 with a double, run scored and RBI.
"The kids felt good about it, but it was more a feeling of ‘yeah, we won,’" Peterson said. "It wasn’t as high emotionally for them as the second game we won; we dominated."
South Hunterdon sophomore right-hander Anthony Danese pitched a complete-game five-hitter, striking out five. He didn’t walk a batter.
Hart went 3-for-5 with two runs scored and a whopping eight RBIs in blitzing Bound Brook 11-3.
"Anthony has been a real surprise this year," Peterson said. "He has nice movement on his pitches. We have guys who can throw harder, but he has outstanding control. We had been walking too many guys, and the errors were hurting us."
South Hunterdon built a 9-0 lead after the top of the fourth.
"The kids saw the scorecard and saw that they (Bound Brook) had a winning record (7-5)," Peterson said. "When you get ahead early in a game like we did, you get a certain amount of confidence. The kids were happy and felt good about themselves."
