R’ville, Steinert still chasing state titles
It’s the final week of the high school season and for the most part everything stands as was originally projected.
Robbinsville and Bordentown are poised to again slug it out in a long line of their Central Jersey Group II championship game collisions, Steinert has reached yet another Central Jersey Group III sectional final and Pennsbury is making a run at a sixth state title.
There have been some notable casualties, including no-longer-defending Group IV state champion Hightstown, but from the start of the season it was clear the area wasn’t quite as strong as in years past in the pitching department. Among the other teams that gave it a good shot over the last week before being knocked out were Notre Dame, Neshaminy and Allentown.
In terms of The Trentonian’s Area Rankings, it’s now become very clear how this will shake out. After briefly dropping down to the No. 2 spot following two losses in district play, Pennsbury is back on top.
If Pennsbury runs the table and wins the PIAA Class 6A championship with two more wins, it will end up No. 1. If Pennsbury comes up short and one of the New Jersey teams captures a state title, then the Falcons could be supplanted for the No. 1 spot.
Where it could get really interesting, of course, is if two area area teams win state titles. This has happened many times in the past — the CVC produced two state champions
and a runner-up in one year alone — but it’s a longshot compared to the recent years when Steinert and Robbinsville were on top of the New Jersey public school softball world.
For its part, Steinert won state titles in 2016 and 2018, and was second in 2017. Robbinsville, meanwhile, won four state titles in eight years from 2011 to 2018, and finished second three other times. This resulted in the Ravens compiling an unbelievable state tournament record of 41-4 during that stretch.
Although softball is clearly the Colonial Valley Conference’s best sport, both Robbinsville and Steinert will have their hands full in their games this Saturday. (For those who can’t make it in person, wbcb1490.com will be streaming the Steinert game live).
Sixth-ranked Robbinsville (19-4) will play at fifth-ranked Bordentown (18-1) in a game with a 3 o’clock start. Robbinsville is coming off a destruction of South Plainfield on the run rule, while Bordentown in its last game needed a four-run rally in the bottom of the seventh to get past Governor Livingston, 6-5.
On paper Bordentown would appear to have the edge in the pitching department.
The Scotties will also take to the field with the knowledge they finally broke through against Robbinsville two years ago with a run-rule victory en route to finishing second in the state.
The Steinert-Colts Neck game at 11 a.m. should also be interesting to watch. Steinert (18-4) is one of the most explosive teams the area has seen in years, but it will be up against a formidable pitcher. Colts Neck (23-1) is led by Ava Metzger, who is a hardthrower in the lower 60s and has struck out 260 batters in 132 innings.
For its part, Colts Neck is coming off a victory over Allentown in which it was forced to rally in the bottom of the sixth inning. Look for more good things in the future from Allentown, which had a very nice season under coach Rich Dawson without a single senior starter.
Whoever wins the above two games will have a good chance of making it to the state finals at the end of next week at Seton Hall. Central Jersey has been dominating South Jersey in the Group II and III tournament semifinals and will be favored again this year.
TRIVIA TIME
Since we are on the subject of Colonial Valley Conference
softball and pitching, here’s a trivia question for readers to ponder: Name the three CVC pitchers who each started and won two state championship games.
You can email your answers to sports@trentonian.com and we will be glad to publish your name if anyone can come up with the correct answer.
PENNSYLVANIA UPDATE
The site of Pennsbury’s Class 6A state semifinal was announced on Friday and the Falcons are headed to the SpringFord field for the second straight time. Their opponent will be Haverford and game time on Monday is at 3 p.m. WBCB will also air this game live.
After placing all six of its qualifiers in the quarterfinals, District 1 now has three of the four semifinalists. In addition to Haverford and Pennsbury, North Penn of District
1 has advanced and will play Canon-McMillan.
You have to like North Penn’s chances. Following a loss to Haverford in the district quarterfinals, the Knights’ Mady Volpe has thrown four straight shutouts. As for Pennsbury, it has rebounded in style from a sixth-place showing in districts and is coming off a revenge 6-2 win over Quakertown in which junior Ainsley McClure struck out 14 batters.
Haverford is a dangerous team. Although it finished third in the district where it lost to Neshaminy, it also beat North Penn, 5-0. Furthermore, on Thursday Haverford beat Spring Ford, 5-3. District 1 champion SpringFord was undefeated coming into that game.
Perhaps Pennsbury catcher Rowan Mulholland put it best when asked about the competitive nature of the District 1 and Pennsylvania state tournaments.
“We know we can beat anybody, but we also know anyone can beat us,” Mulholland said after the Quakertown victory.
Neshaminy is out of the tournament after losing to Canon-McMillan on a two-run, walk-off home run in the bottom of the 10th inning on Thursday. After losing most of its big games during the regular season, you do have to admire the way it rebounded with a strong post-season showing that included a second at districts.
Unfortunately, for Neshaminy, it was also left with an awful sense of deja vu. Check this out.
The last time Neshaminy played CanonMcMillan, it lost in the state finals in 2013 in 11 innings. The pitcher for that Neshaminy team was Lauren Quense. Neshaminy’s current coach is Lauren’s father, Tim Quense.
What are the odds that both of the Neshaminy losses to Western Pennsylvania’s Canon-McMillan would come down to the international tiebreaker?
SCENE OF THE WEEK
You have to wonder what Montgomery was thinking when it wore “Unfinished Business” t-shirts prior to its game earlier this week against Hightstown. This was a reference to a sectional final two years ago in which Hightstown rallied in the bottom of the seventh and won the game on a walk-off home run with two outs.
What’s more, when Hightstown was warming up for the game the Montgomery players turned their backs to make sure the Ram players saw the tshirts.
After the game the Hightstown players made it clear they felt disrespected and you have to wonder why a team would go out of its way to fire up its opponent. Especially if it doesn’t clearly have the horses to back it up, which Montgomery obviously did not as Hightstown won with ease, 6-1.
By the way, Freehold Township lost in the state tournament by the score of 2-1. Instead of the Freehold Township parents moving their fence back as they did without authorization a couple of weeks ago, perhaps they should have moved it closer to home plate.