West Morris head baseball coach Dan Wydner had no idea what to expect of the Morris County Tournament seeding meeting last week.
Wydner thought his Wolfpack had a chance to nab the tourney’s top seed, a distinction that eventually went to Morristown-Beard, the county’s lone team without a setback at the time.
“Going in there, I thought it could have been crazy,” Wydner said. “There were a lot of teams with the same records. It seemed as if everyone was between 4-2 and 2-4. The weather wreaked havoc on everyone’s schedule.”
As it turned out, Wydner was pleased with the way the seeding turned out.
“The coaches had it right,” said Wydner, whose team received the No. 3 seed and will play host to Jefferson in the quarterfinal round Saturday morning. “It was as fair as you do it. In fact, it was more than fair.”
The Wolfpack had wins over Roxbury and Mendham, but heartbreaking losses to Randolph and Delbarton before the meeting.
In fact, standout senior right-hander Anthony Politi was the losing pitcher in both of those games. Politi lost 1-0 to Randolph on Opening Day — a game where Politi threw a no-hitter and still lost. He also lost 2-1 to Delbarton, a game where he surrendered only three hits.
“He’s had 19 strikeouts in 13 innings, allowed just three hits and he’s 0-2,” Wydner said. “Our lineup owes him big time. At least he knows now he’s going to get our bigger starts.”
Although the Wolfpack lost three senior starters from a year ago — three very good players in catcher Will Anderson, third baseman Tyler Amandos and pitcher Michael Feula — they really had everyone else returning.
“We started five sophomores last year and they’re all back this year,” Wydner said.
Connor Thompson, the football star, is the starting first baseman this season. Will Sullivan starts at second, with Conor Barron at shortstop and Pat Anderson, the lone senior of the group, at third. Patrick Kennedy is a returning starter in left field.
“We basically have a veteran team,” Wydner said.
While Politi has pitched in tough luck, senior left-hander Matt Klein has not, posting a 3-0 mark thus far.
“He’s a three-year player and I expected him to do well,” Wydner said. “He beat Delbarton as a sophomore and shut out Roxbury and Columbia. He also beat Parsippany Hills, 2-1.”
Junior right-hander Andrew Montgomery has two wins over Chatham and Voorhees. Junior Stephen McDonough rounds out the rotation.
Wydner likes the makeup of his team.
“I said from the beginning that this is the most athletic team I’ve had,” Wydner said. “We run real well and we have a bunch of good defenders. If we’re going to play close games and that’s the way it appears, then we better be good defensively to keep us in games. Our bats haven’t come around yet. After a miserable March, the pitchers are ahead everywhere.”
So at 6-3, the Wolfpack is right where Wydner expected his team to be. Not many other local coaches can say that.
Lowest seed left standing
When the MCT seeding meeting took place last week, Parsippany Hills head coach Ray Santana had no expectations whatsoever.
“I told the kids that the reality of it all was that we had one win,” Santana said. “I told them that we would be lucky to get above 20. I figured we would be in the 21-to-23 range.”
Sure enough, the Vikings, who owned a 1-7 record at the meeting, received the No. 22 seed out of 25 teams in the MCT.
“We knew we were better than that,” Santana said. “We just hadn’t been able to put anything together all year. We kept making the big mistake at key points of games.”
But the MCT has proven over the years to give lower seeded teams some hope.
“It’s the county tournament, a one-and-done tournament,” Santana said. “Anything can happen.”
The Vikings went on the road to face No. 11 seed Kinnelon and came away with a 4-2 upset to advance to Saturday’s first round against Randolph.
Before the Kinnelon game, Santana had to make a tough decision not to pitch his ace Brandon Katzenberger, giving the ball to Nick D’Uva instead.
“Brandon and I talked about it,” Santana said. “We know that we’re a much better team with Brandon on the field at shortstop and D’Uva on the mound. Believe me, Brandon wanted the ball, but he realized what’s best for the team.”
D’Uva pitched well and earned the win over the Colts.
“He battles,” Santana said of D’Uva. “He pounds the strike zone and keeps us in games.”
So now the upstart Vikings take on the defending champs Saturday in the next round. Parsippany Hills lost to Randolph, 8-0, earlier in the season.
“They realize that they’re the lowest seed remaining,” Santana said. “They see it as a motivating factor. They realize that they’re better than 2-8 and they know they have ability, but they earned that No. 22 seed. Now they have to prove they’re better.”
The Vikings are getting solid play from Tommy Bluj, who is batting .480 with nine doubles. Katzenberger is hitting close to .470.
“We have an opportunity to do some good things,” Santana said. “We’re going to play hard, but we’ve played hard all year. The kids are going to give it everything they have and see what happens.”
MCT pairings
Here are the pairings for the other first-round MCT games on Saturday.
17-Pequannock at 1-Morristown-Beard; 15-Butler at 2-Morristown; 13-Mountain Lakes at 4-Mendham; 21-Hanover Park at 5-Montville; 10-Delbarton at 7-Morris Catholic; 9-Roxbury at 8-Mount Olive, with the aforementioned 14-Jefferson at 3-West Morris and 22-Parsippany Hills at 6-Randolph.
The winners will move on to the quarterfinals Sunday at the site of the higher seed.
Great name, wrong sport
One of the best names in Morris County baseball belongs to Mendham second baseman Tyler Hoops, who has been a solid leadoff hitter for the Minutemen all season.
Hoops scored two runs and had two RBI for Mendham Monday in the 9-0 win over Morris Catholic.
However, one would think with the last name of Hoops that he would be a basketball fanatic.
“I do play a little basketball, but I knew at a very young age that baseball was my sport,” Hoops said. “People always ask me that I should play basketball with a name like mine. But I’m a baseball player.”
Player of the Week
Andrew Baltz, Roxbury senior catcher
Baltz started his week to remember by delivering the game-winning hit to knock off neighboring rival Randolph, then just continued to hit. Over the past week, Baltz has delivered nine hits and 11 RBI for the Gaels, who have begun to hit their stride in time for the Morris County Tournament quarterfinals. Baltz had two hits and three RBI in the Gaels’ win over Chatham in the opening round of the MCT last Saturday.
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