Record-setting year ends with loss
By: Bob Nuse
The West Windsor-Plainsboro North baseball team completed its most successful season in school history on Tuesday.
Yet the Knights wish it could have been a little more successful.
"It was a downer," WW-P North coach Bob Boyce said of the Knights 8-7 loss to Ocean in the Central Jersey Group III semifinals on Tuesday. "You would have thought that we would be happy with such a great year. But they were upset because we gave away a game we should have won.
"We were 22-5 and we set a school record for wins. We annihilated the school record book. Greyson Van Dyke already has the school record for strikeouts and he’s only a junior."
The Knights had hoped to be playing in today’s CJ III final. They would have been on their home field against a familiar foe Allentown. Instead, they came up just short when a three-run rally in the bottom of the seventh left them one run shy of sending the game into extra innings.
"It’s pretty disappointing," Boyce said. "I think we out-hit them. We just didn’t out-pitch them. And I understand we’re going to make physical errors, but we made some mental errors that we just shouldn’t make at this point. But even with that, it was still a 4-4 game in the top of the sixth and we had a chance to win the game.
"We made a game of it in the seventh inning, we just came up short."
The Knights made some uncharacteristic mistakes in the field. They committed a pair of physical errors, while also making a few mental mistakes. It was the latter than bothered Boyce the most. With an experienced team, he never expected the game to be decided by mental miscues.
"Some of the little things that went on, those mistakes just can’t happen," Boyce said. "That was the difference in the game. We had 10 hits. They had six. We both made two errors. They certainly didn’t outplay us."
North led, 4-2, when Ocean scored twice in the fifth to tie the game. In the sixth, Keith Weinkofsky the Shore Conference’s all-time home run leader delivered a bases-loaded three-run double to make it 7-4. Ocean added a run in the seventh before the Knights made a run in their last at bat.
Zach Weale, who finished with three hits, delivered a key two-run single to cut the lead to 8-7. But that was as close as the Knights would get as their season came to an end.
"After the game, I told them they had a great year and that nothing I was about to say should take away from their season," Boyce said. "But we still gave away a winnable game. I hope the younger guys will learn something from this going forward.
"We set a lot of goals for ourselves and we only reached one of them. We won the Valley Division, which was nice for us. But we wanted to get back to Waterfront (the Mercer County Tournament final) and we lost in the semis. And we wanted to win Central Jersey and we didn’t do that."
Down the road, the Knights will look back at their 22-5 record and realize they had a great year. But for now, there was the disappointment of wondering just how far they could have gone.

