Even in a remodeled baseball venue at Bridgewater-Raritan High School, three things seem to still be guaranteed this decade.
Death, taxes, and the Panthers winning in the first round of the state tournament.
While their record alone does not tell the full story, one of New Jersey’s most lethal regular season schedules seemed to pay off in the long run for fifth-seeded Bridgewater-Raritan (12-16), which played its first postseason game since renovating its ballpark against 12th-seeded Plainfield High School (14-5). The Panthers wasted no time making a statement, as they scored three runs and sent all nine of their batters to the plate against the Cardinals in the bottom of the first inning.
With junior Jack Braswell dialed in on the mound, Bridgewater-Raritan was not done.
The Panthers had two outs and nobody on base in the bottom of the third inning, but with senior Stephen Pikulin (two hits, two runs, one stolen base) down to his final strike, his resulting single jump started a Bridgewater-Raritan team looking to leave no doubt. With the bases loaded, freshman Andrew Schmieder (two hits, two RBIs, two runs, two stolen bases) delivered a two-run single for the Panthers to open the scoring of an eventual six-run inning, which included him dodging a pickoff play from third base en route to swiping home plate.
To cap Braswell’s one-hit, complete-game shutout with eight strikeouts for the Panthers, he needed just 56 pitches to complete an impressive 11-0 victory for Bridgewater-Raritan over Plainfield in the first round of the NJSIAA North New Jersey, Section 2, Group 4, Baseball Tournament Wednesday, May 27, in Bridgewater.
“It justifies the tough schedule that we play,” assessed afterwards by Bridgewater-Raritan head coach Max Newill, who has now guided the Panthers to victories in a whopping seven consecutive state tournament openers going back to the 2019 season. “Our record might not be as good as it could be if we played a lesser schedule, but you want to be playing your best baseball at the end of the year, and I think our schedule prepares us for that. There’s nothing we’re going to see in the state tournament that we haven’t seen during the regular season, so I think our guys are well prepared.”
“As long as they come out, play hard, and stay within themselves, it gives us a good chance to win.”
That is especially true in the pitch-count era of NJSIAA baseball, which had an extended layover from the end of the regular season Memorial Day Weekend to Wednesday evening’s start to the postseason. With just two days separating the first and second rounds of the state tournament, however, teams across New Jersey have to budget their throws accordingly to maximize the availability of their pitching staff in later rounds of the tournament.
Newill probably sent Braswell to the plate on Wednesday evening with the expectation he would be unavailable for a potential second-round game 48 hours later, as even just 51-70 pitches requires two calendar days of rest per NJSIAA pitch count regulations.
Braswell not only barely crossed that threshold in his solid complete-game victory.
Because he was the Panthers’ lone pitcher on Wednesday evening, every one of Bridgewater-Raritan’s other pitchers are now fully available for its North 2, Group 4 quarterfinals game next at fourth-seeded J.P. Stevens (18-8), which will be contested Friday, May 29, in Edison.
“It gives the team a lot of confidence and is a big momentum booster, so it was good to play a big role in it,” reflected Braswell afterwards of his efficient outing, which consisted of just 15 balls called amongst his 56 total pitches.
“I was focused on throwing strikes, getting outs, and making it quick.”
With Bridgewater-Raritan’s offense behind Braswell on top of this, indeed, everyone was able to go home much earlier than planned.
Braswell struck out back-to-back batters to begin the game, but Plainfield freshman catcher Duanel Alvarado (one hit) worked a two-ball count and smacked a rocket of a line drive towards left field. Senior Connor Price was able to make the catch at third base for Bridgewater-Raritan, which saw Braswell toss 11 pitches in the top of the first inning and retire the Cardinals in order.
Against Plainfield senior starting pitcher Ronald Mateo, Schmieder smacked a leadoff single before senior outfielder Kellan Komline (two runs, one HBP, two stolen bases) was hit by the first pitch he saw to quickly set the table for Bridgewater-Raritan. Senior catcher Michael Lobosco (two hits, one RBI, one walk) then battled back from a two-strike count en route to a nine-pitch walk.
This loaded the bases for the Panthers with nobody out.
Junior second baseman Nick Spirra (two hits, three RBIs) then ripped a first-pitch, two-run single, which gave Bridgewater-Raritan a 2-0 lead it never relinquished.
Price looked to follow suit with a first pitch fly ball to center field, but as part of a five defensive out evening at center field by Plainfield junior outfielder Angel Cruz, he made a running catch for the inning’s first out. Freshman Joe Cozine (one hit) then produced an infield single for Bridgewater-Raritan after his comebacker bounced off of Mateo to load the bases with one out.
Mateo then scooped up a ground ball hit by Pikulin, but his toss to Alvarado at the plate was good for a fielder’s choice and denied Bridgewater-Raritan its third run. With the bases still loaded, senior outfielder Josh Moore (one RBI, two runs, three HBP) was then plunked for the first of three times to bring home Spirra, which gave Bridgewater-Raritan a 3-0 lead after one inning.
Neither team scored again until Bridgewater-Raritan did so emphatically in the bottom of the third inning.
However, Braswell tossed an eight-pitch second inning, and he punctuated a perfect start through three innings by striking out the side on just 11 pitches in the top of the third inning. He was also just one pitch away from an immaculate inning (striking out all three batters on just nine pitches), but Plainfield senior outfielder Dayyan Beverly managed to extend his at-bat by three pitches after facing a two-strike count.
With his team trailing 3-0 in the bottom of the third inning, Cruz registered back-to-back outs on the mound for Plainfield, including his first strikeout. Facing a one-ball, two-strike count, Pikulin’s single extended the inning for the Panthers, and Moore’s second consecutive hit-by-pitch put Bridgewater-Raritan back in scoring position.
After sophomore shortstop Cody Rible (two hits, one RBI, one run) loaded the bases with an infield single, Bridgewater-Raritan opened the floodgates.
Schmieder’s two-out single into right field scored Pikulin and Moore, and suddenly, an error at the mound on a ball put into play by Komline scored Rible to double Bridgewater-Raritan’s lead to 6-0.
That was not all.
Schmieder was briefly caught in a rundown between third base and home plate, but somehow, he avoided each tag on the ensuing relay along the left field line.
Eventually, he crossed home plate uncontested for Bridgewater-Raritan’s seventh run.
“It was a pretty good feeling, but I was a little worried at first,” recapped Schmieder of his miraculous steal along with his swing that began to break the game open. “I got caught up with a bad read, but I just managed to get out of it pretty safely, and it just worked out in scoring a run. We just like to work together to get runners on and bring them in, and in my at-bat, I was just looking to pull the ball somewhere to the right side.”
“It worked out pretty well.”
With Bridgewater-Raritan now leading 7-0 after its extra life, Lobosco tallied another RBI double, while Spirra made it a 9-0 ballgame on an RBI single that scored junior Branden De Matos: Lobosco’s courtesy runner. This ultimately chased Mateo from the mound in favor of freshman reliever Johansel Lora, and while he ended the inning on a ground ball to Plainfield sophomore Rhuell Morel at third base, the damage was already done by the Panthers.
“Stephen Pikulin did a great job with two strikes,” recapped Newill of his team’s massive third inning. “He fought off a pitch and served it into center field, and we went from there. Two-out runs are huge, especially if you can get something going with two outs and nobody on, because that’s just a great thing for momentum. We scored six runs with two outs and nobody on base, and that was huge, because it gave us a big cushion. We were able to bring some guys in, and a lot of those guys have been varsity bench players who played [junior varsity].”
“They’ve done a great job this year, so it’s good to get them some experience in a state tournament game.”
To close out Bridgewater-Raritan’s big day, its bench made some key contributions to the final outcome.
De Matos took over at second base in the top of the fourth inning, and he fielded back-to-back ground balls to extend Braswell’s perfect game bid. With two outs in the top of the fourth inning, Alvarado thwarted that opportunity on a first-pitch single to left field before advancing to second and third base on pitches that got behind home plate.
Braswell then ultimately won a six-pitch at-bat against Morel with his seventh strikeout, and as a result, Plainfield came up empty in the top of the fourth inning.
With one out in the bottom of the fourth inning, Pikulin then collected a single, and Moore completed his hat trick of plunks to put the potential winning runs in scoring position. Rible’s second single scored Pikulin, which extended Bridgewater-Raritan’s lead to 10-0 and put the Panthers in mercy-rule range. At the top of the order, sophomore Matt DeLucia gave the Panthers even more insurance in the leadoff spot with a pinch-hit, sacrifice fly.
This extended the home team’s lead to 11-0 and rounded out the game’s scoring.
Senior Joey Confalone (one walk) then worked a four-pitch walk before sophomore Vito Lodese ripped a fly ball deep to center field with two runners on for Bridgewater-Raritan.
To cap off his big day at center field for Plainfield, Cruz robbed Lodese of potentially two RBIs with another big grab in the outfield for the Cardinals, but Bridgewater-Raritan was set up to close out the game leading 11-0 after four innings.
The Panthers did just that with an exclamation point.
After Braswell struck out the Cardinals’ leadoff batter, freshman Jason Baxter scooped up a ground ball at second base and made the throw in time to Pikulin at first base to send the Panthers’ dugout into a celebratory frenzy. Fittingly, Braswell ended his big game by fielding a comebacker just off of his mound, and his throw to Pikulin officially closed out Panthers’ decisive 11-0 victory.
“I’m glad that we turned it around at some point in the season,” Braswell went on to say of Bridgewater-Raritan, which started the year with a 6-14 record but has now won six of its eight games to launch its bid to win a state championship it just won two years ago.
“We’re all pulling the same way, doing what we’re supposed to do, doing our jobs, and it’s just showing.”
Its only two losses in this stretch came on back-to-back days against a pair of teams ranked amongst New Jersey’s top 10 squads. Against ninth-ranked Immaculata (21-5) in the Somerset County Tournament semifinals at TD Bank Ballpark on May 18, Bridgewater-Raritan: the No. 5 seed in this event, had the top-seeded and reigning champion Spartans on the ropes after building a two-run lead with one out in the top of the sixth inning. Immaculata rallied for three runs en route to a 7-6 victory over the Panthers to return to the county finals.
The Spartans ultimately fell in an eight-inning pitcher’s duel, 1-0, in the Somerset County Tournament finals against 17th-ranked Watchung Hills (16-8), which is seeded No. 3 in Bridgewater-Raritan’s North 2, Group 4 playoff bracket.
One day after its heartbreaking loss to Immaculata, Bridgewater-Raritan ran into a buzzsaw at reigning Group 2 state champion and 10th-ranked Governor Livingston (23-4), which erased an early two-run deficit and responded to a fourth-inning charge by the Panthers via victory by mercy rule, 17-7, in five innings.
That said, losses such as these have only gotten Bridgewater-Raritan ready for the postseason when it matters most, and the Panthers are red hot at the perfect time.
Factoring in the cancellation of the NJSIAA spring sports season in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which also saw Newill guide Bridgewater-Raritan out of the opening round of The Last Dance Baseball Tournament that summer, the last time the Panthers were eliminated in the opening round of the state tournament was in 2018.
That Bridgewater-Raritan squad eight years ago entered the North 2, Group 4 playoffs with just six victories and the No. 15 seed against then-second-seeded Millburn High School, but the Panthers took a two-run lead into the bottom of the fifth inning. However, Millburn rallied for five runs in the bottom of the fifth inning before holding on for a victory, 6-5, over Bridgewater-Raritan en route to losing to then-top-seeded Westfield High School in the North 2, Group 4 title game.
For the 2026 postseason, sixth-seeded Westfield (14-11-1) will travel to third-seeded Watchung Hills (16-8) at 4 p.m. Friday, May 29, in Warren. Second-seeded Bayonne High School (20-8) or 10th-seeded Woodbridge High School (16-10) await the winner of the quarterfinals matchup between the Blue Devils and Warriors.
Woodbridge tallied North 2, Group 4’s lone first-round upset, 8-5, at seventh-seeded Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School on Wednesday evening.
The winner between fifth-seeded Bridgewater-Raritan and fourth-seeded J.P. Stevens, which pulled away for an 11-2 victory via six runs in the sixth inning against 13th-seeded Ferris High School in its state tournament opener Wednesday evening, will advance to the North 2, Group 4 semifinal round against either top-seeded Ridge High School (16-10) or eighth-seeded Phillipsburg High School (14-9).
Of the eight teams in the North 2, Group 4 quarterfinals, four of them will represent the Skyland Conference given Ridge, Phillipsburg, Bridgewater-Raritan, and Watchung Hills all won their state tournament openers. Because Ridge and Phillipsburg play each other at 4 p.m. Friday, May 29, in Basking Ridge, at least one team from the Skyland Conference is guaranteed a state sectional semifinals berth.
Should both Bridgewater-Raritan and Ridge particularly win on Friday evening, they would square off for a third time this season Wednesday, June 3, in Basking Ridge in a win-or-go-home rubber match after both teams split their two-game regular-season series.
While anything can happen in the high-variability sport that is baseball in the postseason, with the Panthers playing their best baseball at the right time, the future is certainly bright as always at Bridgewater-Raritan no matter what happens the rest of the way.
“I’ve been playing baseball pretty much my whole life and have been looking forward to this season for all of middle school,” concluded Schmieder, who is second on the team in batting average (.356) and walks (18) to go with 12 RBIs and 20 total runs in his freshman campaign.
“It’s been a really great experience with all of our older guys making me a part of the team as well as they have.”