Holbrook Little League chasing history; opens NJ state championship with big win
SECAUCUS – It’s that time of year again. The moment each summer when past glories intertwine with the lofty dreams of 12-year-olds playing out on 60-foot basepaths across the planet.
Except it’s a little different in Ocean County, which has produced seven Little League World Series teams, with two winning it all.
That’s a high bar. And with the 25th anniversary of Todd Frazier-led Toms River East American’s championship in Williamsport, Pa., attention has turned to a Holbrook, with the unbeaten team from Jackson having outscored the opposition by an 82-7 margin this summer.
The latest example of their potential came in Wednesday night’s 6-3 win over Hammonton in an opening-round game at the Joe Graziano New Jersey State Championships at Buchmuller Park, overcoming three unearned runs with some timely hitting and pitching to improve to 13-0.
Holbrook must come right back to face East Hanover, which defeated Fort Lee, 6-5, in the first game of Wednesday’s doubleheader, on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.
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“The players are very in tune with the history of Little League in the area,” said Holbrook manager Erik Johnson. “Everybody knows Toms River East, everybody knows Todd Frazier, everybody knows that history. But Holbrook has its own history. You walk around the complex and there are banners everywhere.”
Creating a legacy
It was 2017 that Holbrook rolled through the state and regional tournaments with a 20-1 record, riding a 15-game winning streak into the World Series, when they went 2-2. This year’s team reached the state tournament by winning the Section 3 title with a 1-0 win over a Nottingham team that won the state title as 10 and 11-year-olds.
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“We know about the Holbrook teams and all the teams over the years,” said Ryan Yungel, who drove in two runs against Hammonton and kept them off the scoreboard over the final two innings. “We want to be like those teams.”
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“They do know those boys from the 2017 team. They grew up the neighborhoods with them. They went to school with them for a little bit when they were young,” Johnson said. “We actually have a kid, Danny Abbonizio, whose brother was on that team.”
Against Hammonton, it was a four-run second inning rally that provided all the runs Holbrook would need, doing the damage with six straight singles, including a two-run poke by Brendan Varricchio off Hammonton starter Joe Baglivo.
“I sat back and watched the first two pitches, which were close, and learned from them, and then got one I could hit,” Varricchio said.
“They fought, they didn’t give up, it was a good team win,” Johnson said. “We have timely hitting. We have guys who know how to work counts, and we just put hits together.”
Each year provides new drama. In 2021 it was Carson Frazier, Todd’s nephew, cracking to three-run double to provide the winning runs in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Tournament final in Bristol, Connecticut, punching Toms River East’s ticket to the grandest stage in youth sports.
The tradition traces all the way back to 1975, when Lakewood, led by Dion Lowe, won the World Series title in a tournament featuring just U.S. teams that year. Toms River East American, now just Toms River East, began its incredible run of success in 1995, and in 1999, a year after winning it all, they reached the U.S. championship game. Toms River National made the trip to Central Pennsylvania in 2010.
“It’s always everyone’s goal, right. You want to do something when you’re 12. That’s the magical year,” Johnson said. “I always thought we had a good team. I always thought we would win District 18. But we knew Toms River East was very good, we knew the district was very good. So to win districts was like a dream come true. We all felt like after that it was free baseball. Just to keep playing into the summer.”
And while there’s much work to be done for the latest team seeking to add its name to an iconic area list, there’s a lot to make you think they might be playing well into August.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Holbrook NJ Little League baseball wins opener a state tournament
