Championship High School Sports

Now that I do a daily sports show I rarely mention local sports during this segment but I’m going to mention a few things this morning. Not getting to see as many high school baseball games as I used to I decided to attend Tuesday night’s game between Toms River East and Toms River South at Ken Frank Stadium and I’m glad I did.

The Indians eked out a 1-0 victory behind the pitching of Tyler Gebler and three of the best catches you’ll ever see in the same game. Two of them were made by Rutgers-bound outfielder Ryan Kapp, including one in which he went over the centerfield wall and used all of his 6’4 height and leaping ability to take away a home run. Kapp then made another terrific catch in the 7th and sandwiched in between was a diving catch in the gap by right fielder Joe Patterson. Those plays combined with Gebler’s four-hitter gave South just their second victory over East in their last 16 meetings. The great thing about sports is when you go to a game you never know what you’re going to see and last night I got to witness something special and it was free.

Barnegat High School earned a share of the “Class B South” championship with a 5-3 victory over Lakewood Tuesday with Brian Calabria’s two-run homer in the 5th inning the big hit. The Bengals, in just their third year of varsity baseball, share the division title with Central Regional, who under first-year coach John Scran made a complete turnaround from last season when they won just four games.

“Class A South” champion Toms River North ripped Central 12-4 yesterday as Steve Nyisztor had one of those unforgettable days an athlete dreams of.
The junior second baseman hit for the cycle (single, double, triple, homer)
and drove in six runs for the Mariners, who improved to 15-2. The shore’s #1 ranked team, North is the top seed in the Ocean County Tournament which gets underway Saturday.

For those who have not tuned in I talk sports every weekday from 3-6pm
on The Locker Room with Kevin Williams which airs on 1160 WOBM AM as well as Fox Sports 1310. Among my guests today will be record-setting softball pitcher Brittany O’Donnell of Red Bank Catholic.