Hun falls to Pingry in Prep A final
LAWRENCEVILLE » One of the finest high school baseball teams in Mercer County history will have to settle for a single trophy this spring.
After winning the Mercer County Tournament for the first time last week, the Hun School baseball squad had a chance to become just the third Mercer prep to win a county and state trophy in the same season after Peddie in 1999 and Lawrenceville in 2000.
Yet, that dream was not to be with Pingry taking the New Jersey Independent Schools Athletics Association Prep A Tournament title Sunday by defeating head coach Tom Monfiletto’s Raiders for a second time in five days, this time by a 5-3 score at L’ville’s James Waugh Field.
“The past two years have been the most magical rides I’ve been on,” Hun’s Tulane University-bound senior outfielder Ben Romano said. “The memories have been great, so it is a little bitter to lose to them.”
After giving the Raiders a test in 2021 when they returned to the Prep A Tournament fold for baseball, head coach Anthony Feltri’s Big Blue (20-2) were stronger this time around and rallied to defeat Hun after it took a 1-0 lead in the first inning with University of Kentucky-bound righthander Carson Applegate on the mound.
Pingry tied the game with an unearned run in the fourth inning, then scored four runs on a tiring Applegate in the sixth.
“What makes both of these teams so good is the hitting,” the Big Blue’s Norfolk Statebound 6-foot-7 senior Liam Royster said. “Our hitting was really important because our defense was phenomenal, and our pitching has been great throughout this tournament.”
Royster led the way for the fourth seed Sunday with two hits, including a key twoout single in the sixth which plated two runs to give the visitors an important 5-1 edge.
“We’ve been preaching all year that as long as we get two runs, we have the pitching to win,” Royster said. “So, with a four-run lead, we thought we were good. But just barely.”
With pitchers Alex
Payne, Nav Jha and Jake Francis all doing their part, Pingry held the Raiders hitless over the final three innings, yet still saw Hun (22-4) score a pair of runs in the bottom of the sixth before stranding two more in scoring position.
“As a group, we feel we work harder than most,” said Romano, who had one of his team’s four hits in the championship game, “Each year, we try to carry our tradition from seniors to juniors. Still, losing this game is a shock from which we’ve got to make an adjustment.”
Applegate, who scored the Raiders’ run in the first, had two of the remaining hits with one more coming from Tyler Tucker. But the Big Blue turned three double plays to stop rallied before they got started, including one in the seventh inning after Carson Wehner drew a leadoff walk from Francis.
HUN 10, LAWRENCEVILLE 1 LAWRENCEVILLE »
Sunday morning at Waugh Field began better for the Raiders, mostly because of the completegame pitching of senior right-hander Wehner in their Prep A semifinal elimination win over the host Big Red.
While four L’ville pitchers kept the top seed from putting the 10-run rule in effect, Elon University-bound Wehner went the distance, throwing 82 pitches to hold off his team’s archrival.
“We were running low on pitching, so to be able to throw a complete game, that was huge for us,” Wehner said. “Things had been going well, then it was really just one inning where I was missing my spots, and (Big Red leadoff hitter) Hawkins (Sutter) got me that time, too.”
Sutter had two of the three hits managed by head coach Steve LaRochelle’s 13-8 squad, including a game-opening double and a single which plated Ryan Visich with Lawrenceville’s lone run in the fifth.
“That’s something I’ve done a lot,” Sutter said of his double after which Wehner retired seven consecutive batters before Tim Griegel singled in the third. “It sure looked like that woke him up. Carson’s
a great pitcher. They’ve got a lot of great players. I have so much respect for them. But you can’t tell the story of how Lawrenceville baseball has improved over the last two years without mentioning Hun. I’m pretty sure half of our losses were to them.”
That was the case this season with four battles against the Raiders.
Applegate started their scoring in the bottom of the first with a double of his own, which was followed by singles from Romano and Jackson Kraemer before a ground out by Michael Chiaravallo gave Hun a 2-0 jump. The Raiders scored three more runs in both the second and third innings with shortstop Applegate driving in a run in each.
Their scoring stayed that way until Wehner (2-for-3) helped himself with an RBI single
in the sixth before Michael Jolly’s sacrifice fly plated courtesy runner Will Kraemer with the 10th run.
Wehner finished the game with two of his six strikeouts on the day in the top of the seventh.
“I was thinking about it being my final time pitching for Hun before the last batter,” Wehner said. “I was pretty sad, but I settled down and him. I’ve been happy with my performance this year, and with the team’s. We won the MAPL (Mid-Atlantic Prep League) again and won the Mercer County Tournament for the first time.”
The only thing missing was the Prep A state title, which the Raiders had not lost since the 2014-15 season.