Brett Carroll
Staff Writer
The confidence is oozing, so said the coaches and players on the South Amboy Middle High School baseball team.
“We’re just going to try to keep confident,” South Amboy coach Daniel Poulsen said. “Keep chipping away and try to make some noise in the state tournament.”
Zach Honimar, a junior pitcher, agreed with his coach.
“Same thing.” Honimar said. “We want to see how far we can go in the state tournament. But, we have to take it a game at a time.”
South Amboy’s confidence continued to surge when the Governors defeated East Brunswick Vocational Technical High School, 11-4 on May 7 in East Brunswick.
The victory improved South Amboy’s record to 13-2 on the season after that victory. South Amboy at that time was sitting in first place in the Greater Middlesex Conference’s Gold Division.
“We stayed confident when batting,” Poulsen said. “Stayed confident in our decisions. We were able to chip away. It was a huge team win today.”
“We tried to make plays,” Honimar said. “We put the ball in play. We kept our heads in the game. We played great defense. And, we worked together as a team.”
South Amboy’s players are determined to make their opposing pitchers work while they strive to improve on defense.
“We just want to keep working pitch counts and working at-bats,” Poulsen said. “Keep making defensive plays and giving it our best effort every time.”
“We just need to make sure that our defense continues to make plays,” Honimar said. “You know, we can’t get distracted. Just keep our heads in the game. Don’t take anybody lightly, and focus on the task at hand.”
The Governors are young, but Poulsen is pleased with their progression.
“Our team has gotten contributions from top to bottom,” Poulsen said. “But guys like [junior third baseman] Nick Charmello, [junior shortstop] Kyle Gasiewski, [sophomore right fielder] Johnny Gonzales, [junior catcher] R.J. Perez, [junior center fielder] Stephen McLaughlin. Really, just our whole lineup is contributing in some way every game.”