The New Egypt High School baseball season ended with a thud when the Warriors lost to Pitman High School, 12-0, in the NJSIAA South Jersey Group I state sectional tournament championship game, but coach Rich Carroll said that loss did not diminish the team’s 17-6 campaign and its first unbeaten run in its nine years in the Burlington County Scholastic League Freedom Division.
“I don’t know of anybody who has done that in my 11 years coaching around here,” said Carroll, whose team won its first league title since 2004. “We have always been very competitive, but to go undefeated [in the division] came out of nowhere, considering that we started off slow.”
Carroll alluded to the fourth game of the season when the Warriors scored four runs in the last inning to overtake Florence High School, 13-12, and even its record at 2-2.
“That turned the whole season around,” the coach said. “We are pretty proud of our accomplishments.”
Aside from the Pitman game, the only other Group I (small school) team to beat the Warriors was Robbinsville.
Junior Taylor Steen played an integral role as a shortstop when he wasn’t pitching. During the campaign, Steen set a school record for strikeouts in a game with 14 against Riverside. Steen has said that he became more of a leader. He batted .381 with four home runs and 28 RBIs and fashioned a 6-3 pitching record with a 2.80 ERA. In 55 innings, Steen struck out 67 hitters and walked 13.
“Coming into the season I knew we had a lot of talent, but [I knew] that we would have to work real hard to win games,” said Steen. “Playing as individuals is not fun, and the last few years we showed that. We focused on teamwork from the first game.”
Rigo Morfin, a junior first baseman who had a team-high 29 RBIs with a .360 batting average, agreed.
“We just worked really hard in practice with our goal to win the division,” said Morfin, who is playing with the Bordentown Post 26 American Legion baseball team and believes that playing summer ball will lead to greater improvement for the Warriors’ returning players in 2011. “Last year we made a lot of errors. This year we concentrated on making the plays, and our bats got better with it.”
In fact, Carroll said going into the 2010 season that the Warriors had “probably the best hitting team we have ever had” as the only coach through its nine baseball seasons, and the squad lived up to his billing.
Hitting as high as .375 as a team through the first few weeks of the season, New Egypt ended up with a .337 batting average as “far and away the best hitting team we’ve had here,” the coach said.
The Warriors’ pitching staff had a combined 3.90 ERA, with 169 strikeouts (7.3 per game) and 60 walks (2.6 per game).
In addition to Steen, Morfin was 4-3 on the mound.
Five seniors will graduate, three of them starters that include center fielder Shane Wisberger and four-year starters third baseman Brian Hamilton and catcher Mike Fassl, who hit .411 with five home runs and 23 RBIs. Fassl is headed to NCAA Division II baseball program Franklin Pierce University.
“I play three sports and Brian Hamilton plays two, and we never won a division title in any sport and I really wanted to win it this year,” said Fassl.
“We had 28, 23 and 29 RBIs in the No. 3 through No. 5 spots in the order, which shows they did their job,” said Carroll.
Hamilton batted .348 with 18 RBIs as the No. 2 hitter in the order. Carroll said Hamilton did “a phenomenal job at third base.”
Another departing senior is Ryan Brevogel, who started the 2010 season in left field before sitting out with an elbow injury. Junior Eric Bennett took over but broke his leg late in the season, and Brevogel, who had just been cleared to play again, returned to left field.
Freshman Bill Raab was a big boost to the pitching staff — he went 4-0, all division victories, and had a 2.00 ERA. Junior Connor Siegelski was 2-1 on the mound.