Mysterious Monroe baseball team could win anywhere from six to 20
By: Ken Weingartner
Greg Beyer entered last year’s baseball season relatively certain of what to expect from his Monroe Township High School squad.
This season, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Beyer himself has said the Falcons could win anywhere from six to 20 games this year that’s how much uncertainty surrounds his feel for the team.
One of the reasons for the questions is that Monroe graduated four key contributors from last year’s 16-11 squad that won the Greater Middlesex Conference White Division title and reached the state playoffs for a second consecutive season.
Gone are two-time division Player of the Year Jarred Jimenez, Nick Alberino, Marc Povlosky and Mike Doros. That quartet accounted for 50 percent of the Falcons’ run production in 2006 and none hit lower than .357. Furthermore, Povlosky and Doros combined to win eight games on the mound.
"Last year, we scored 206 runs and that’s not going to happen again; that’s a lot of runs," Beyer said. "We lost our leaders, so right now we’re trying to build a team and some leadership. If we can focus for seven innings, we’re going to be tough to beat. If our pitchers can keep the ball down and throw strikes, and if we play a little defense behind them, we should be all right."
Matt Kalbach, Ryan Cushman, Lenny Bergen, Ryan Clark, and Marc Magliaro return to handle the pitching duties. Bergen was 3-0 with a 3.27 ERA last year while Kalbach and Cushman both had two wins.
That group will be joined by Chris Cirlincione, a senior who played for Monroe as a freshman, moved to Florida, and now is back in the township. In addition, John Schieda is up from the junior varsity level and freshman Andy Sullivan has shown enough potential to possibly see action during the campaign.
"They’re all pretty good," said Beyer, whose team opens the season Monday against South Plainfield. "Our pitching staff is the strength right now. We have guys with some pretty good stuff."
Matt Lezzo, who homered three times last year, making him the top returnee in the category, replaces Jimenez at catcher. Anthony Modugno also will see time behind the plate.
Cirlincione and Kalbach will share time at first base while Garrett Beyer and Andy Stern return at second. Magliaro, Dan Palisay and Peter Patalano are the shortstops and Clark and Nick Barszcz will play at third base. Rich Feldhan, Bergen and Cushman will see time in the outfield, along with Vinnie Small.
Feldhan batted .368 with two homers and 21 RBI last season while Kalbach hit .325-2-19 and Magliaro was .338-0-14. Bergen batted .303-1-13 while Clark and Lezzo both hit over .300.
"We lost the core of the team, but we have strong returning players," Beyer said. "Last year, we kind of knew what we were going to get; we started the season strong because we had so many experienced players back. But I knew we weren’t going to improve during the season the way we did the year before.
"I think we’ll improve a lot more this year as the season goes on; the experience factor falls in there. We’ll have to see how it all pans out. It depends what kind of roll we can get on."
So far during the preseason, the Falcons have fallen victim to big innings. Monroe has allowed three or more runs in a frame six times in scrimmages.
"We’ve been scoring runs, but we haven’t put together a full game," Beyer said. "It’s hard to tell from the preseason because you’re just trying to get the kinks out. Before the preseason, I would have thought we would play a lot of 3-2 games, but that hasn’t transpired yet."
Not surprising heading into a season where nothing appears to be certain.

