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Baseball ranking and notes: area Skyland Conference and UCC Top 10 after Week 4

harry frezza jr.
·5 min read

Gill St. Bernard’s and Rutgers Prep baseball teams will be part of the eight-team Prep B Tournament and scheduled to play games Thursday. Fifth-seeded Gill will play at No. 4 Morristown Beard. Sixth-seeded Rutgers Prep plays at No. 3 and defending champ Pennington. The semis are a week from Tuesday at the higher seed and the final is set for 7 p.m. May 9 at Diamond Nation. Newark Academy is the top seed followed by No. 2 Doane, No. 3 Pennington and No. 4 Morristown Beard.

Rutgers Prep has made the final the last two years and beat Princeton Day for the 2019 title.

More: Baseball April roundup: Results, analysis, links for GMC, Skyland and area Union County

More: Somerville baseball looks for consistency, tops Montgomery behind Ciesla's strong start

The Hunterdon/Warren/Sussex and Union County tournaments are scheduled to begin Wednesday. The Union final is scheduled for May 13 at A.L. Johnson. Cranford is defending champion.

The HWS final is set for May 15 at Phillipsburg.

The Somerset County Tournament will be seeded a week from Tuesday with Rutgers Prep the defending champ.

Top 10

(records through Saturday, April 27)

1. Bridgewater-Raritan (12-1) – last week No. 1: The defending Skyland Delaware champs have clinched a tie for the division title. A win at Ridge Tuesday would give the Panthers the outright title. B-R won at Ramapo 11-3 in Bergen County Saturday as JR Rosado drove in three and will travel to Burlington County on Monday to play Cherokee (8-3).

2. Westfield (11-1) – last week No. 4:  Junior Braedan Trajkovski went 3-for-4 with three RBIs and senior Tomas Cestero lasted 5 2/3 innings for the win in Friday’s 12-5 win over No. 2 Governor Livingston. The Blue Devils lost 11-4 at Summit Tuesday and beat Cranford 7-6 Wednesday with a non-conference 5-1 win Saturday at Bernards. Blue Devils play host to Millburn (8-8) today.

3. Governor Livingston (11-2) – last week No. 2: The Highlanders had their four-game win streak snapped in a 12-5 Friday loss at Westfield but had impressive wins at Caldwell and Cranford. Matt Diskin pitched a complete game five-hit shutout against Cranford.  Next up is a Union County Watchung home game with New Providence on Monday with non-conference games at Delbarton (Tuesday) and home against Sparta (Wednesday). That’s followed by a division game Thursday against Johnson.

4. Scotch Plains-Fanwood (10-4) – last week No. 5: The Raiders have won more games than all of last season (9-16 in 2023). SP-F has won seven straight, going 4-0 for the week. They took UCC Watchung Division games against New Providence and Johnson and nonconference routs vs. Union City and Glen Ridge. They have a difficult week ahead with games at Summit (Monday), South Plainfield (Wednesday) and at home vs. Cranford (Friday).

5. North Hunterdon (8-5) – last week No. 7: The Lions have become kings of the shutout. They have won 4-of-5 with the wins all by shutout and the loss to Ridge, a 2-0 setback on Tuesday. Sophomore Alex Famolari and senior Mike Seifert combined for the 8-0 win at Watchung Hills on Wednesday. Junior Chris Sand and senior Ben Linzer did the same in a 6-0 win over Hunterdon Central Thursday and senior Gavin Corcoran threw a 4-0 complete game win Friday against Middlesex.

6. Watchung Hills (7-5-1) – last week No. 8: Watchung Hills bump up from No. 8 courtesy of avenging early losses to Rutgers Prep and Immaculata with 11-5 and 11-7 wins. The Warriors greet slumping Hunterdon Central on Monday before a Raritan Division game with Pingry Wednesday. The two played to a 6-6 draw April 11.

7. Ridge (8-5) – last week No. 9: The Red Devils had their seven-game win streak snapped by New Providence Saturday at Patriots Stadium. But before that, Ridge won four games by a collective 24-4, including shutouts over North Hunterdon and Randolph. Red Devils were scheduled to play Union Catholic on Sunday before an inter-division game at Phillipsburg Monday. No. 1 Bridgewater-Raritan visits Tuesday. Can the Red Devils hand the Panthers their first Delaware Division loss and stay mathematically in the race to earn a share?

8. Immaculata (9-3) – last week No. 3: The Spartans experienced a bad week with Raritan Division losses to Watchung Hills and Montgomery and an inter-division loss at Phillipsburg. They still lead the Raritan race. Immaculata plays Somerville at Diamond Nation on Monday, then have Raritan games at Franklin (Tuesday) and Rutgers Prep (Thursday).

9. New Providence (4-8) – last week unranked: The Pioneers have had close losses before taking a 3-2 win over Ridge on Saturday. The Pioneers fell 1-0 to Brearley, 4-3 to Phillipsburg, 4-2 to Summit and 11-9 to Cranford. Perhaps the move into May will turn some of those results around.

Pingry and Franklin high school baseball teams met Thursday, April 25, 2024 afternoon at the field at Franklin High School in Somerset.
Pingry and Franklin high school baseball teams met Thursday, April 25, 2024 afternoon at the field at Franklin High School in Somerset.

10. Franklin (6-5) – last week unranked: The Warriors enter the rankings after getting wins over Skyland Raritan Division foes Montgomery and Pingry to remain tied with Immaculata atop the standings. Both are 5-2 in the Raritan and meet Tuesday with the pennant on the line. Immaculata won the first meeting, 13-5, on April 11.

Dropped out: Hunterdon Central (5-7)

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: NJ Baseball: Area Skyland and UCC Top 10 and notes