Hightstown to induct historic 25th Hall class
HIGHTSTOWN » Mercer County’s longest running athletic Hall of Fame reaches a milestone this year.
The 25th class of the Hightstown High School HOF will be honored at an 11 a.m. luncheon at the Holiday Inn in Hightstown on Friday, Sep. 21. The official induction will be held that night during halftime of the Rams Lawrence football game.
Tickets are $40 per person and can be purchased by calling Jim Peto at 609-443-7738, ext. 1156 or 1157.
This year’s class features Lauren Camisa Villaverde (Class of 1997), Matthew Babcock (2001), Eric Katz (’01), Sarah Mitchell Angelozzi (’03); Erika Juricic-Guneratne (’08), coach “Doctor” Don Hess and the 1959 state champion boys’ soccer team.
Camisa Villaverde excelled in basketball, soccer and track & field; scoring over 1,000 points in basketball and tallying three gamewinning goals in soccer. A three-year soccer defender, Lauren played every minute of every game her junior and senior years and helped the Rams to a combined 29-6-3 record and earned All-CVC. In basketball she tallied 1,069 points as a four-year starter and was a multi-year All-CVC selection.
A basketball career at East Stroudsburg was curtailed by several knee injuries, but Villaverde served as a player-coach her senior season. She currently resides in Branchburg with her husband and two children, and is employed as the U.S Head of Event Operations at Black Rock in Princeton.
Babcock is the first male individual state track & field state champion to gain HOF entry, as he won the Group III shot put title in the winter of his senior season with a throw of 5210 — still a school record. He was also named HHS Male Athlete of the Year. Babcock also played three years of football and wrestled for one season. He won the Coaches Award in football and played in the Sunshine Classic.
Matt is a staff sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps and lives in Yuma, Ariz., With his wife and three children.
Katz is the first HHS HOF inductee to hold four state titles. After becoming a paraplegic as a freshman, Katz’s athletic abilities were not bound by a wheelchair as he won Meet of Champions gold medals in the 100, 400, 800 and 1600, setting state records in all four. He placed third overall and first in his age group in the North Jersey Masters wheelchair races and was fourth overall and first in his age group in the North Jersey Masters 10K.
As the nation’s No. 1 recruit, Katz received a full scholarship for basketball and track to the University of Arizona; the nation’s leading university in wheelchair sports. He set national records in junior events for track and swimming, was captain of the basketball team and led the Wildcats to fourth in the nation their first year as an intercollegiate team. Eric currently resides in Toms River and Hoboken, and makes prosthetic limbs and orthotic braces
Mitchell Angelozzi was a three-letter winner in field hockey, basketball and spring track & field, playing a total of 11 seasons. She captained the field hockey and basketball teams and was the HHS Female Athlete of the Year her junior and senior years. As a three-year starter in hockey, Angelozzi collected nine career goals and 14 assists and was a two-time All-Central Jersey coaches selection. She finished first, second and third in the Central Jersey Group III meet in javelin during her three years of track, and took third in the Group III meet as a senior.
At Muhlenberg, Angelozzi became the top javelin thrower in school history and still holds the school record with a throw of 1454. She won the Centennial Conference Championships gold medal four straight years and was named Most Outstanding Performer in field events as a senior. She was Muhlenberg’s first All-American in women’s track & field and is in the school’s athletic Hall of Fame. She now works as a strategy consultant in an investment firm and lives in Red Bank with her husband and son.
Juricic-Guneratne was the CVC girls soccer Player of the Year as a senior, leading the Rams to a CVC title as their top scorer and being named to numerous All-Conference and All-State teams, along with the Mercer 33 squad. In softball, she was the Rams ace hurler for three years and was the CVC Player of the Year as a senior.
Juricic-Guneratne played college soccer for two years apiece at Mercer County Community College and William Paterson. While at Mercer she scored 27 goals and 17 assists, led the Vikings to two Region XIX titles and was named All-Region. Juricic-Guneratne resides in Chesterfield with her husband and works in the insurance business. She and sister Danielle are Special Olympic softball volunteer coaches.
When Hess retired from coaching in the fall of 2016, he did so as Hightstown High’s winningest all-time coach in boys basketball (316), girls soccer (255) and girls track & field (143). A middle center, Matthew Babcock, middle right, Lauren Camisa Villaverde, bottom left, Don Hess, bottom middle, and Eric Katz, bottom right.
14-time Coach of the Year, Hess has been recognized by newspapers, the CVC, the NJSIAA and East Windsor Board of Education; along with numerous civic and officials’ organizations.
Under Doctor Don, the soccer team won four conference titles and reached the Central Jersey Group III finals. Hess won Coach of the Year eight times. In track, his teams won eight conference titles and had seven individual state champs as he won COY three times. In five decades of basketball, his teams won six conference titles, two Mercer County Tournament crowns and twice reached the CJ III finals. His 403 combined basketball wins at Hightstown and Notre Dame place him fourth in county history, and he was a three-time coach of the year while also winning the Father Clarence O’Shea Award and CVC Lifetime Achievement Award. Hess retired from teaching in 2016 after 46 years.
Hall of Fame coach Russ Beaulieu’s squad, led by Hall of Famers Joel Tornquist, Sam Turner, Carl Jantz and Leroy Platt, is the last of three undefeated soccer teams in school history. The squad went 11-0-1 en route to the NJSIAA Group II title, outscoring its foes 44-3. The Rams had nine shutouts and their only blemish was a 1-1 tie with Trenton. It was their fourth straight state crown.
Tornquist was first-team All-State in goal, Turner was second-team on defense and Platt and Jantz were honorable mention. Turner and Rolland Prudhon were co-captains on a team that amazingly had just 12 players. Rounding out the team were Richard Hutchinson, Bill Moody, Roger Muse, Clifford Muse, John Oliver, Bob Patten, Leon Randolph and manager Eugene Jablonski.