By Jeff Appelblatt
It’s been an up-and-down start for the baseball team at Colts Neck High School. Through the first few weeks of the season the team has shown it’s capable of winning, but it has also shown that it may have fewer answers to avoid losses than it did in the past.
For instance, the Cougars lost two of their first six games this season by one run. The team’s coach, Mike Yorke, always expected his club to win close games over the years.
“We lost two one-run games,” the coach said after the most recent, a 2-1 loss to Freehold High School April 13. “Usually, we pulled those out.”
But Yorke anticipated the year beginning this way, primarily because of the team’s youth.
“We know we’re young,” he said. “We have a lot of learning to do.”
It wasn’t only graduation that has Colts Neck back toward the beginning of the playbook this year. There were certain young players the 19-year coach had high expectations for, beginning with Reece Horneck. But any expectations for the sophomore were put on hold this season when Yorke realized he may miss the whole year due to injury.
“He was counted on for a lot of production,” Yorke said. “He was going to be the [No. 3 or 4] hitter. He [also] pitched.
“But the lefty hitting sophomore had a big injury.”
Colts Neck’s coach realizes it’s going to take a team effort to compete.
“At this point, we’re expecting big things from everyone in the lineup,” Yorke said.
The seniors will need to keep things together on the mound.
“Jon Weitzman is a right-hander that’s been pitching really well,” the coach said about the senior who threw for victories in two of the Cougars’ first three wins. “Then we’ve got Dillon Pellechia, Kevin Condon and Matt Hawkins pitching.”
Weitzman tossed three innings against Matawan Regional High School and 5.1 innings against Howell High School to get his wins. Condon, meanwhile, threw five innings and pulled out a victory vs. Neptune High School.
In order to adhere to the new pitching rules, Yorke knows he has to be prepared to use at least two pitchers regularly — not that he was hoping for complete games all the time in the past.
“We never really put too much on kids’ arms,” he said.
He wishes it wasn’t the new restrictions that were in control of his pitching decisions. Sometimes the schedule is too full to be forced to sit a player.
“We play Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday,” Yorke said April 15, knowing that four games in four days could mean a group of pitchers will be unable to throw because of the number of pitches they’ve thrown and not necessarily because of exhaustion.
No pitcher can make more than 140 tosses in a five-day span.
Colts Neck (3-3) faced Freehold Township High School (3-3) April 18. The Cougars play again April 19 at home against Marlboro High School (4-3), are at Christian Brothers Academy (6-1) April 20 and will be back in Colts Neck April 21 to face Manalapan High School (6-2).
Each game is slated for 4 p.m.