'We're coming together': St. Joseph has walk-off win, hopes to click down the stretch

METUCHEN – Just keep showing up, chipping away, staying positive.

What else could the St. Joseph baseball team do? The squad of mostly new varsity starters have been learning and adjusting on the job against a loaded schedule with state powers.

So, the Falcons suffered some early losses and the record hasn’t been pretty near midseason. But the spirit’s been there with hopes of clicking down the stretch.

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Enter two pulsating wins against East Brunswick to jumpstart the second half. Last Friday, the Falcons scored five times in the top of the seventh for the 5-2 win.

Wednesday, St. Joseph trailed 5-1 entering the sixth inning and rallied for the 7-5 walk-off victory. The last two runs scored on Matt Friedman’s ground-rule double.

Pulsating.

“We care a lot,” St. Joes’ shortstop Bobby Christensen said. “We’re a family. We care. We’re coming together. We’re showing up every day, trying our hardest and right now we’re not coming out on top in most of these games, but hopefully today is the start of something special and we really do believe that we can be there in the end. I’m very happy we came away with this.”

Christensen pointed out they started 4-6 last season with several veteran seniors and finished 21-10 and won the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament title.

Now, it’s up to the returners like Christensen, Friedman, Christian Salgado and John Risley who are keeping the spirits up and showing leadership in the 3-9 start.

“We’ve rallied,” Christensen said. “We understand tough times come in sports and we know there’s light at the end of the tunnel and we know there’s going to be special moments for us to come. We’re very confident that we’re going to end up in the spot we want to be in.”

Those moments have already started. As a bonus, the win came on head coach Mike Murray Jr.’s birthday, who joked that they usually lose on his special day such as last year’s loss to St. Benedict’s.

Wednesday, St. Joe’s gave him a present and its rally started in the sixth with Matt Ferber’s two-RBI single between center and right that cut the deficit to 5-3. Joseph Zammitti singled and Christensen walked to lead off the inning.

In the seventh, Luke Palermo, a pinch-hitter in the No. 9 spot, dropped in a single on the edge of the center field grass. That was followed by singles from Will Kwiatkowski, Zammitti and Christensen, whose hit tied it at 5-5.

Salgado’s bunt hit loaded the bases, setting the stage for Friedman’s rip to deep left center that was scored a ground-rule double, allowing both runs to score.

Salgado drove in the Falcons’ first run in the fourth with a first-pitch single to left center field that scored Zammitti, who had singled.

Friedman, too, sees the development of the team and the confidence in the dugout and in the walk-off win.

“I told my boys, I said it’s either going to be me or JP (Zayle),” Friedman said. “We’re walking this off. We’re not going home without a win and clearly it turned out pretty good. We continue to battle with two strikes and I think the growth is really showing. We’re buying into that never-say-die mentality, and I mean you saw it work here in the last inning. There’s confidence the whole way through. I mean, if you go out there defeated, nothing good’s ever going to happen but I got trust in my brothers and they got trust in me and good things are going to happen when that’s the case.”

Joe Barca gave a strong six innings, allowing four earned runs with six strikeouts. Reid Bazydlo earned the win with a scoreless seventh.

East Brunswick (2-10) is in a similar predicament as St. Joes and showed glimpses. In fact, they had back-to-back suicide squeezes that scored runners from clean bunts by Drew Mennona and Lukas Meyer. Pitcher Jack Ryan had two pick-off throws and gave a good start.

Meyer had an eventful game. At shortstop he snagged a fly ball for an out and threw to third base from his stomach to get the force out in the third inning and threw out a runner trying to score an inning later. He also had an RBI-double

Wednesday, though, it was the Falcons’ time to get going. However, they couldn’t celebrate too much as they have a stretch of five games in five days. In other words, they hope it’s just getting started.

“It feels good to get hot,” Friedman said. “I mean, I just love these guys, man. We’ve dealt with so much adversity throughout the year. I feel like we’re really starting to hit our stride. Obviously, we’re a younger group, it’s going to take a minute to get acclimated – not a lot of previous varsity experience. We’ve had some injuries but I really love the way we’re coming together. I mean, this team’s a true family and I think the results are starting to show and they’ll continue to show.”

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: NJ Baseball: St. Joseph tops East Brunswick on walk-off rally