It’s a new division with strikingly similar results. After winning the Shore Conference A North Division baseball title last spring, Colts Neck High School moved to B North in 2015 and has picked up where it left off last year.
Head coach Mike Yorke’s Cougars are 8-1 overall and 5-0 in division play, and they sit atop their new division.
“I’m not surprised at the performances of our athletes. I know they have ability,” Yorke said. “I’m extremely happy that they have bought into our team-first philosophy, which is difficult for 15- [to] 17-year-old athletes to do sometimes.”
The Cougars have already dispelled one of their biggest concerns heading into the season: pitching.
Colts Neck graduated their two aces — Gianni Magliaro and Robbie Warendorf — from the A North title squad and nine of the team’s 16 victories went with them. Of the 155 innings thrown by Cougars pitchers in 2014, the team only returned 52 innings of experience.
However, Yorke still held a pair of would-be aces in left-handers Chris Murphy (4-1) and Mario Ferraioli (3-2), who combined for seven wins.
They have been bona fide aces thus far in 2015. Both are 3-0.
Murphy allowed his first earned run of the year April 16 when the Cougars beat traditional B North power Wall High School, 4-2.
The senior has worked 18 innings and notched 25 strikeouts.
Ferraioli, a junior, is pitching to a 1.75 ERA with 16 strikeouts in 16 innings.
They are the definition of power pitchers.
Mike D’Attavio, a newcomer, is 2-0.
Justin Hanewald, another newcomer, is 2-2 in save opportunities. He collected his second save in the Wall victories.
D’Attavio and Hanewald are juniors.
The Cougar pitchers had not allowed more than four runs in any one game. Murphy and Hanewald combined for a three-hitter against Wall.
Colts Neck also graduated a considerable part of its offense except for the A North Hitter of the Year, Tyler Kapuscinski. While Kapuscinski is having the kind of year he expected (.444 batting average), two players who batted under .300 last year have been on fire.
Mike Antico and Tyler Kay are both batting .500 with 23 hits between them. Antico, a junior who has committed to St. John’s University, Kay and newcomer Tim Cavrak share the RBI lead at six. Antico has scored 12 runs and Kapuscinski has 10.
Kay (four doubles) and Antico (four triples) have supplied the team’s power.
Colts Neck has scored 71 runs in its first eight games without the benefit of the long ball. The team has not hit a home run, yet is averaging just fewer than nine runs a game. That’s because the Cougars have been playing small ball so well, utilizing their speed and running the bases aggressively, forcing the action.
The insurance run against Wall came on a suicide squeeze off the bat of Jake Mc- Tigue, scoring Nick Umbro.
Antico, who has been doing everything for the Cougars, has used his base stealing to score those team-high 12 runs. He has 14 stolen bases already in just eight games.
Umbro has swiped five.
The Cougars have displayed comeback ability during their 8-0 start. At Freehold High School, they trailed, 4-1, heading into the sixth inning but scored two in the sixth and three in the seventh to win it, 6- 4. Every starter had at least one base hit in the game. Andrew Conforti delivered two RBIs. Ferraioli pitched a complete game, fanning seven.
Colts Neck moves into the heart of its B North schedule this week against the division’s other powerhouses. On April 20, the Cougars were scheduled to play undefeated defending division champion Red Bank Catholic High School (5-0) at Count Basie Field in Red Bank.
On April 24, they play the division’s other perennial contender, Ocean Township High School, which is off to a 7-1 start, in Colts Neck.
This week’s schedule is a reminder that despite the Cougars’ great start, “there is much more baseball ahead,” Yorke said.